Thoughts from the intersection of science, pseudoscience, and conflict.

My most recent post (“Dear parents, you are being lied to”) has sparked a very lively discussion. I encourage you to continue to share your thoughts on it, but I also want to follow up by asking for your reactions to one comment that I found particularly interesting. (I’ve edited it a bit for brevity)

As a pediatrician who’s spent extensive time working in the US and overseas and has seen children die from EVERY disease (except small pox) for which there is a vaccine I am appalled at the lack of education by the general public on the vaccine issue. This is my rant: I had two unvaccinated children in the US die from whooping cough, one from tetanus, and 2 from meningitis in the past few years. Perhaps this reflects our country’s generally poor understanding of math and science in general. A recent large study in the US showed that no matter how scientists try to educate US parents about disease and disease prevention, whether it is vaccines or hand washing, parents simply cannot follow the logic.

It’s devastating to see children die from preventable disease and despicable that it is happening here. I would like to know why those whose children end up in the PICU with tetanus or whooping cough now trust us to save the life of their child? Why do you run to a doctor when you are terrified your child has tetanus after refusing to vaccinate? Why am I now competent to save your child’s life when they have meningitis or epiglottis, but I wasn’t competent enough to keep them from getting sick? If there was no medical help for your unvaccinated child if they acquired a vaccine preventable illness would you think about vaccinating? If you’re not willing to run to your anti-vaccine friend, treat your child with advice from non-scientific sites on the internet, go to your chiropractor, or your holistic healer with your dying child perhaps you shouldn’t be taking their advice about vaccines. —Anonymous

To those of you who simply don’t trust the medical community’s use of vaccines, I am curious what you make of this physician’s point. Given your reservations about vaccines, do you trust an MD to treat yourself or your children for any medical issues at all? If so, why do you trust his/her education and experience on some points but not others?

I invite anyone, pro- or anti-vax, to share your thoughts on this. Please respect each other by following the commenting policies (and feel free to alert me if I miss a comment in violation of them).

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notnearlysoanonymousJanuary 29, 2015 / 7:09 pm

Officials: Up to 1K possibly exposed to measles in Ariz.

With as many as 1,000 people across three Arizona counties potentially exposed to the measles, state public-health officials are asking people who think they may have come in contact with the virus to isolate themselves.

In addition, they are asking those who may have been exposed not to show up at doctors’ offices, emergency rooms or urgent-care centers, where others could be exposed to the highly contagious virus, which can linger in the air for two hours.

The possible exposure rate of 1,000 people is tied in large part to those who may have come in contact with 195 children who Maricopa County health officials say were exposed to measles between Jan. 20 and 21 at the Phoenix Children’s East Valley Center in Mesa.

Mebluewolf2,
When you wrote, “What a bunch of hog wash!! All lies!! Just ANOTHER bought and paid for LIAR!! VACCINES KILL !! End of story,”
how did you reach that conclusion?

What was your decision-making process?
What evidence did you evaluate and how did you decide how to weigh that evidence?
What evidence did you evaluate that was contradictory to your final conclusion, and why did you decide to discount it?

Do you have any real evidence to support your claim? I ask this out of sincerity. I am student studying biology and such, I have often asked myself if it is possible for such effects to be caused by vaccines. So far the work I have looked into has been pure “hogwash” claiming that there are links between autism and vaccines, etc. if you have any idea what your talking about, please comment back with something as I am very curious, thanks and have a great day! 🙂

And measles, Hib, polio, pertussis, diphtheria and tetanus don’t kill. Please show us how well you are into this topic then please provide the PubMed indexed studies by reputable qualified researchers that any vaccine on the present American pediatric schedule causes more harm than the disease.

Have you read the research on thimerosal and what happend to the nations who received our generous donations of vaccinations that were being preserved in thimerosal. They now have an epic rise of autism. Of course, our government doesn’t want us to know this or have exposure to this because we have damaged life as we know it. So sad. I see these effects right in front of my eyes with the students I teach and their parents, families and friends. Come on people, be careful with what you allow to be injected into your children because our docs have to follow the American Academy of Pedeatrics and are trained to tell you only what they are allowed to tell you. Do your own research, talk to your neighbors. This is a scary epidemic!

One argument is that especially in America.women are being encouraged to have flu jabs, even when pregnant. That PHARMA companies are still using thimerosal in those jabs. I don’t know.whether that is true, but worth investigation. I am not anti-vaccine have four children all vaccinated and well.

“That PHARMA companies are still using thimerosal in those jabs. I don’t know.whether that is true, but worth investigation.”

THAT is a very good question. “Is it true?”
In fact, perhaps the even better question is, “How could a person find the best, most truthful, answer?”

So let me ask you, Anonymous (if you decide to use a nickname, it can sometimes make the conversation easier to follow), how do you go about deciding what sort of information sources to use for other things in life?

Honestly, I’m interested. If you look at my other comments on this thread and the related ones, I think you’ll find I really interested in how people decide what to believe – and not looking for a fight.

So, please, if you care to reply, please let me know how you go about deciding who to believe when there is a controversy between two groups that both claim to know better what is true about a subject?

Actually the increasing number of diagnoses of autism and ASD is more likely attributed to the broadening of the definition. The definition has changed several times over the years since it was first theorised as a condition in 1913. You’re probably asking why, and its because there is clear evidence to show that early intervention is beneficial in managing the condition.
Can you believe some people (usually antivaxxers) think that autism didn’t exist prior to 1913? I guess we didn’t have any real means of identification back then, so people were probably thought of as strange or unusual. With what we do know, its mainly considered to be genetic in origin. Also, you should check out this cohort study which can’t find a link between vaccines and autism: http://gizmodo.com/study-of-1-3-million-kids-reveals-vaccines-arent-associ-1577691180

So let’s TALK polio since i have been given a last gasp “convincing argument” (not) that i “just want to kill everyone with polio” since i don’t support vaxassinations.

So here’s the greater reality. When the first outbreaks of polio occurred in the US it was the late 1800s. We know what caused the outbreak. Gypsy moths. An amateur entomologist in New Jersey had brought over some gypsy moths from Europe and we had no natural controls. His back yard was totally netted – but the birds pecked through in order to hit their favorite restaurant. Consequently his gypsy moths escaped to the wild.

Since there were no inhibitions on the moth breeding – they did so, drastically. The gypsy moth denuded much of the east coast, and particularly the apple trees. None of the heavy metal pesticides could touch the gypsy moth and everyone feared the apples would die in the entire Northeast at the least.

Someone found that if you COMBINED arsenic and lead it worked to kill the pests. EVERY MEASLES OUTBREAK FOR DECADES WAS EXACTLY WHERE AND EXACTLY WHEN THE GYPSY MOTHS WERE SPRAYED. Look up the symptoms for polio. Then for arsenic poisoning. Pretty much identical.

It seems to have switched to DDT – and the polio virus AND the pesticide seemed necessary to develop a case of polio. HUGE NOTE HERE!!!

Polio in the 40s and 50s was not only going away quickly – but the diagnosis was that if you had 2 or more muscle groups paralyzed for 2 days – YOU HAD POLIO. That is all it took. (there were other neurological issues but it was for 2 days and in multiple muscle groups)

Prior to the vaccine development – if you took 1,000 average polio patients, one would die or develop permanent damage in their limbs usually – but 999 out of the thousand STILL WERE CONSIDERED POLIO VICTIMS but self-remediated their symptoms and were cured. Had polio, but were cured by theirselves.

AS SOON as the vaccine came out the definition and diagnosis was changed. The 999 out of a thousand from yesterday were no longer polio victims – ONLY the permanently injured and dead were now counted. Thus – it was a statistical scam of the first order, because the polio rate increased drastically with the vaccine. Multple provinces in Canada developed double or triple the disease and death rate they had prior to the vaccine. States in the USA which had NEVER had a single case of polio now started sprouting them left and right.

So – the actual question is not do these pathogens ever kill, the appropriate question is how much of the health improvements ATTRIBUTED to vaccines ever came from the vaccine at all? We know that the way ALL these diseases were dropping well before the vaccine for them ever existed that disease rates would have continued dropping regardless of the vaccines. In fact, the measles graph indicated that there would be no USA measles deaths at the time that this occurred – but the vaxassination crowd claims it was ONLY the shots which caused this. Bullhonkey.

This is as fallacious a paradigm as the much touted, never possible “herd immunity” argument. Patently stupid, really. The truth is that biochemically human’s can’t get herd immunity from vaccines because they are AT BEST a partial engagement of the immune system and actually a short circuiting of our immune systems. You can NOT claim ANY immunity from vaccines – because immunity is PERMANENT and vaccines AT BEST provide a few years protection depending upon vaccine, etc. At best. On the other hand – i naturally developed the measles, mumps, and chicken pox infections (what else, lol) and thus have complete total lifelong immunity from these diseases. Something no vaccine can replicate.

You could look for example at S Korea where they had a bit of a chicken pox problem in 2005 – so they increased vax compliance rates. EVERY time they increased compliance rates – the disease occurrence (and outbreak) increased MORE. Now they think they have about 97% under 18 month vax compliance and about 95% for the general society.

Their chicken pox rate is TRIPLE that of 2005. One virologist i blogged with states it’s because their chicken pox vax is only going to protect to about 78 or 79%. Well – then how come the disease rate didn’t drop to 78% of what it had been in 2005 instead of increasing? Not logical.

The “golden measure” for vax tests (unscientific bullshit) is the antigen response. Think about this though – about 4-6% of the population never has an antigen response. Other studies show that pathogenic illnesses are fought equally well whether one has had an antigen response or not.

This is HUGE – it basically proves the antigen response is NOT a measurement of vaccine effectiveness, and since no vaccine studies measure the response TO THE ACTUAL DISEASE for which one takes the shot – you have NO proof that vaccines do any good. i think we have very strong evidence they do great harm.

my first child had a bad reaction with his shot at 3 months,, in winter,, and spring when he was sick for 6 weeks after his shots,, and before that he almost died when earlier that fall they gave all his shots because he didn’t have records with him and in order to put him in school,
,
then my 2nd child completely changed after her shots that she was given one spring that made her sick for 6 weeks,,, she is now 37,, and still is suffering

my 3rd child only received one shot at a time and I picked which one she got,,,,, she was ok,,
my 4th child,, I don’t remember if she had shots,,,, I don’t remember,, but she was very healthy and strong,
my 5th child ended up in the ER with her shots,, it was winter
my 6th child ended up in the ER with her shots.. it was also winter
my 7th child didn’t get but a few shots in summer,, and no reaction
my 8th child went into complete seizures, and screamed for 12 hours,, and the hospital told me not to come in and her tongue stuck out for several months after,,, it was winter

so I found that I was threatened with severe harm if I did not do what doctors said,,,taking away my child,, so I did the best I could to get their shots,, I made sure they were healthy when I took them in,,,but it seems that in summer where they had lots of healthy sun and fresh ripe fruits they didn’t have a reaction,,
my kids have been exposed to chemicals in our well water from rice farms too,,
none of these have paid a fine for their harm that they caused.
i’m glad that my last child is an adult now and no one can vex me with vacs anymore,
but 3 of my grandkids have autism from vacs,,,,forced on them,,
how many have died from these diseases,,
how many have died from medical errors involving medicine properly prescribed, hundreds of thousands every year,,
I saw reports the diseases where under control Before they developed the vaccine,
and no one has died from measles yet over a hundred died from the vaccine

Why should we believe you? You posted nothing to do with when incidence of polio dropped before the vaccine.

In the future just post the PubMed indexed studies by reputable qualified researchers that any vaccine on the present American pediatric schedule causes more harm than the diseases. Also if you post anymore family anecdotes, make sure to provide the link to the US Vaccine Court ruling:http://www.uscfc.uscourts.gov/vaccine-programoffice-special-masters

2005 New England journal of Medicine. Pneumonia and flu vaccination does not work. Cdc states that 25 micrograms of mercury in the flu shot is ok to get if you weigh over 500 pounds. This is one, there are many European studies that show brain development and behaviour in lab animals from the equivalent doses was the same as humans with autism. There has never been 1 study that proves what causes autism but when we look at the facts it Points towards vaccinations

I did not receive any money from any company for writing this article (except IFLS, when they reposted it, but that didn’t happen until months later, and the small amount of ad revenue that WordPress gives me). Nor did anyone commission or suggest this article to me. So no, this article was not sponsored.

you do realise that every single day that tiny person is exposed to much much more then 8 viruses don’t you? We are estimated to inhale 1000 viruses and a 100 bacteria every minute! In our guts we will have 100 times more bacteria then we have cells from our own bodies. So its just nonsense to suggest that exposing a tiny persons immune system to 8 viruses is going to have some sort of detrimental effect. We are exposed to countless viruses and bacteria every second of our lives!

Not a lot of people dying of small pox these days….just sayin. Kinda straing for a disease that was capable of killing a third of Europe. Also, where do you suppose all this money to be made from vaccines went?

I am so saddened when I see any one state vaccination does not cause autism : then state we don’t know what causes autism !!!

I will ask : if I had a contract to state : you can immunise my child on the condition that if the child develops autism : you will be liable for $1.000.000 . Would you agree to the contract !!!
If a child is sociable and active and alert at the time of immunisation then you would expect the child to remain so post immunisation would you not !!!

I would then ask you to sign ancontract, making yourself 100% liable for child neglect if that child contracted and died from one of the diseases that was preventable, and furthermore, also liable for any child your child infected. And if any of those children died from that disease to be brought up on manslaughter charges. Let’s be 100% honest, the reason anyone feels any safety in not having the immunization is because the live in a country where most around them do, I know your feelings would be very different if you lived in a country where the medicine for immunization wasn’t available.

” : if I had a contract to state : you can immunise my child on the condition that if the child develops autism : you will be liable for $1.000.000 . Would you agree to the contract !!!”

That would be easy, since we would require that you produce the same quality of data that was required for the Autism Omnibus proceedings. We are not just going to take your word for it. Do tell us which one of the three cases ruled that vaccination caused the child’s autism:http://www.autism-watch.org/omnibus/overview.shtml

Just you challenging anyone with that deal does not mean we don’t know what causes autism, you are stating you do know.

We don’t know what caused the big bang, we can say it wasn’t vaccines in your mind would you argue that therefor there is a chance that vaccines caused the big bang? No? Why? Because we have ample evidence to support the fact that the two are not linked, and whilst I can say with a great amount of certainty that no studies exist looking for a link between vaccines and the start of the universe I can say with even more certainty that studies that look at the link between vaccines and autism DO and have proven time and time again that there is no link. How hard is that concept to grasp? We have looked into it time and time and time again and there is NO link, how many times do you need to hear that before you stop grasping for links? I will pull no punches here, I am tired of mollycoddling anti-vaxxers, pure and simple, if you do not vaccinate your child on any grounds other than the direct advice of a doctor who has actually examined your child then you are partaking in child abuse, you are willfully putting your child and the children of others at risk so that you can have some warm fuzzies and so that others can make money. You are not living alone on an island somewhere, never coming into contact with other human beings, you are part of a society and quite frankly if you want to benefit from living in that society is beyond past the point you got with the program and started helping to protect those at risk from preventable diseases by vaccinating your children

Why do you want my son to be dead? Autistic people deserve good fulfilled lives, and they deserve respect. But you would rather they be dead. Do you also tell that to parents of kids with cerebral palsy? Do tell parents of those with Down Syndrome that there is a test and they could have aborted their child?

By the way, there is no real evidence that vaccines cause autism. But your comment is real evidence that this issue causes some very nasty attitudes to a whole section of our disabled citizens. Here is a trailer to a new movie, I really like what happens in the end, because sometimes I feel like doing that to those who disrespect my kid:http://www.themoviepo.com/#!trailer/p5xyy

first I do vaccinate my kids, I was vaccinated and all my siblings, then we did not know about autism and I did not hear of anyone saying that child died (except those who proven to be ill priory vaccination and had complications from which they died).

Another thing, we did not get 8 vaccines in same time, my older boy got max 3 but younger one got 5. Why is necessary to squeeze everything as soon as possible?

Most of the kids are at home till age of one at least, mothers are vaccinated as kids, why is important to do everything so early when kids are not exposed to large number of people? (asking for explanation as I do not understand)

As far about efficiency vaccine is efficient in later age as well, due to being premature little guy got his vaccines with delay.

I am asking about ration as 1 in million means that in population of 321 500 000 people number of people with side effect will be 321, is that true?

Question, what is actual number of kids affected by side effects of vaccines in USA? I tried to find data and PubMed paper that actually state those data. Please help on that.

I understand that there is lot of unknown and that lots of people put lots of effort to make things right.

“For over 50 years, concerns have been raised about the risk of pertussis vaccine-induced childhood encephalopathy and epilepsy. This article reviews the scientific literature, and the social and historical context in which the scientific, public health and societal views have not always been aligned. Large-scale studies of this issue have produced conflicting results, although the recent consensus is that the risk of vaccine-induced encephalopathy and/or epilepsy, if it exists at all, is extremely low. Risk estimates in the literature have included: risk of a febrile seizure 1 per 19,496 vaccinations; risk of an afebrile seizure 1 per 76,133 vaccinations; risk of encephalopathy after pertussis infection nil-3 cases per million vaccinations. A recent study showed that encephalopathy in 11 out of the 14 children studied, although previously attributed to vaccination, was in fact due an inherited genetic defect of the SCNIA gene that codes for the voltage gated neuronal sodium channel. This study is important because it provides a solid alternative explanation for the perceived pertussis vaccine-encephalopathy association. The interesting possibility is raised that the encephalopathy apparently due to pertussis itself may, in some cases, be due to an SCNIA mutation. It may also, by analogy, shed some light on the continuing debate about other serious long-term adverse effects of vaccination in general.”

I am willing to read and learn how to be sure that next vaccine is not one to much for my little guy. Or when is best moment to do vaccination. Just simple if already compromised immune system is under pressure or balance in amount of iron and if child has some other deficiency that are mild or not sever to be noticed is it possible that vaccination can trigger domino effect and push the organism over the edge? My question to you, how a parent can ensure that child will be fine?

I think all parents just want some kind of insurance from doctors that their child is not corrateral damage.

We all want to understand where virus comes from , where there are when there is no sick people, how somebody gets sick, how someone becomes patient 0 or source.

“Hepatitis B is not a sexually transmitted disease. It is transmitted with body fluids, including blood, and during birth (the tests on mothers for HepB are not 100% accurate)”

If child is already exposed to virus in uterus would not child get virus as well before birth? And how vaccine can help to already infected baby?

I am not anti vax but I do ask questions and I never got answer from any pediatrician “How to know is my child at risk from possible side effects?”

As well kids who actually suffer from side effects are not supported by the system and that is only thing I say that system should help those families, help in child care and investigate and research how to deal with problems that kids do develop, not just to say to parents that it is not vaccine.

Honestly, on the end of the day when child already had been vaccinated and had side effects I just want to see someone who will help, and not ignore and say sorry not our problem.

As I already posted before heavy metals are not just in vaccines and trace amounts are not enough to cause the problems, but does anyone considered to test kids priory to vaccination and check are they already been exposed to pollution? Are those trace amounts are added to already something that together can create neurological problems?

Fact is that there are cases with very severe reactions and to those people their problems are not something that happens really rare, to those people those problems are very real.

I am against signing that I understand everything and that no one has responsibility if my child has reaction.

I do not understand everything, and I want that someone is responsible and takes over costs and provides support to those people whose kids are injured by vaccines.

I do not see why that would be a problem if we only talk about small number of kids per generation.

“I am asking about ration as 1 in million means that in population of 321 500 000 people number of people with side effect will be 321, is that true?”

Insufficient data. You are using the entire population for a country, and most are not at the age where they get vaccines. Also, you have to check with what type of vaccine and what side effect you are checking. In the USA there is the Vaccine Safety Datalink Program, this page also has links to actual papers:http://www.cdc.gov/vaccinesafety/ensuringsafety/monitoring/vsd/

Seriously, what is your field of study? What kind of science do you do that you do not need to use statistics?

“If child is already exposed to virus in uterus would not child get virus as well before birth? And how vaccine can help to already infected baby?”

The child is not infected in utero, but as it is born. The mother’s blood contacts the baby both through vaginal and caesarean section (which is quite bloody). The virus replicates slowly enough that the vaccine has time to build antibodies in the baby. It is very similar to why a rabies vaccine works after bite from a rabid animal. A paragraph from the article I linked to:

There are 25,000 infants born to mothers that carry the virus every year in the United States that we know of. If something goes wrong and a mother is falsely labeled as negative or unknown status, that baby can have up to a 90% chance of acute infection depending on what phase she is in (immune active with high viral load has the highest risk). If infected, most will develop chronic infection and of those chronically infected 25% will die because of it.

So what scientific field are you in?

The article you linked to showed that the seizures attributed to a vaccine were instead a genetic version of epilepsy. That is one thing. Though you never know what kind of roll of the genetic dice you are going to get, and not all genetic sequences that cause problems are known. My son has a severe genetic heart disorder. There are eighteen known genetic sequences that cause it, he does not have any of them. They don’t know what gene did it, and we speculate it might also be the reason for his autism. Human biology is very complicated.

“As I already posted before heavy metals are not just in vaccines and trace amounts are not enough to cause the problems, but does anyone considered to test kids priory to vaccination and check are they already been exposed to pollution? Are those trace amounts are added to already something that together can create neurological problems”

Just as for many things in life: the dose makes the poison. The amounts of heavy metals that were in vaccines was teeny tiny. They were certainly much smaller than the dose of lead many kids got before there was lead-free gasoline in cars, and the amount that used to be in house paint. Or what is in the air near certain factories that do not have good pollution control (it varies by country). There were several studies in various countries about that, and there is even a problem here now with water in the American city Flint, MI. Yes, that has been taken seriously for the last fifty years (at least in North America and Europe). Though to see how it was dismissed long ago look up the Calder Mercury Fountain, you can visit it if you travel to Spain.

So what is your scientific field?

“I do not understand everything, and I want that someone is responsible and takes over costs and provides support to those people whose kids are injured by vaccines.”

Many qualify with a “table injury” (see link on that page), and of course if the injury is not part of the table one has to prove it. The rules for evidence in that program are very lenient, but it still has to be a tiny bit more than 50%.

I do use statistics and that is why I am confused. If you observe pollution and transfers, and you try to say what is possibility that something happens, happening that has probability of 1 in 100 years can happen more often, as example if you have event this month it does not mean that it cannot happen next month again, but probability to happen is again 1 in a hundred years. (you have natural events and man caused accidents that can interact so calculating frequencies is statistics but not necessary same as methods you use in medicine)

or if we try to rate exposure we talk in percent of population, but we take into account all area (radius) that pollution could affect people, look how many people live in the area and get our ratio considering dissipation rate of pollution.

so by that logic if all people need to be vaccinated no matter that you look only right now vaccinated kids number of ones with side effects cannot be bigger than overall ration over whole population.

point (I do not know actual numbers of kids that are proved to be affected by side effects of vaccines) but following statistics for each vaccine should be for USA around 300 people, some kids can develop multi effects but if we consider that each child react only on one vaccine, and if there are 10 diseases kids are vaccinated up to 2nd birthday that is expectation of 3000 affected people by some side effect in USA. ( if we consider only one side effect per vaccine).

So my point is that parent should not be pressed to take over responsibility but policy of one for all , and all for one should be applied.

It is good if there is in USA way to cover your bills if proven that vaccine cause problems, as kids with serious injuries usually need life time care.

I just say that that option should be more visible and presented to parents, that in case that their child is one that develops problems society will give care.

Unfortunately, where I am born we been exposed to radioactivity and many different pollutants from PSBs to SOx in high concentrations so already there is high level of cancer development and one more thing like unknown content of vaccines just scares people.

I see you are very well into the subject because of your kids, so you would understand that as mother whose kids had prognosis that they will suffer from epilepsy and etc. I do wonder about necessity to give them too many vaccines. I posted that article because my little guy need to get DTP and he is happy little puppy, with all the time runny nose and fevers with no obvious cause (tests do not show any bacteria or active virus) we do check as he goes to kindergarten and we want to be sure he is not carrier of something for other kids.

So, we are not far behind we just need two more vaccines to be done with vaccination till school. And I am never saying to anyone what to do, as looking him developing infection he is vaccinated against I knew that in case he got actual illness he would not be fine.

So, before you judge me, realise whatever I ask I ask as I found thinking for myself makes me feel worse.

I want to be responsible and do prevention but also I understand people who just get too scared and treating them as a problem is not solution. We need better educated pediatricians who know information you as a parent just gave me, as I do not have time to read all papers available.

Today I am here by accident as we scheduled blood test priory vaccination and I again been looked like I am nuts and I again listened how immunization is perfectly safe and that I just should vaccinate him without all the checks.

My senses were alarmed to seek for more information to prove myself that I am not nuts of being cautious.

You say you use statistics, what is the area of science that you work in?

By the way, one of my random guesses as to my son’s genetic disorders is my father transported radioactive materials after World War II when he was in the Army. But it could have been a random cosmic ray that knocked a piece of DNA out of place.

Dear Chris I explained you which area of science. But I do not see how judging me as a bad scientist will help preventing vaccine side effects or give actual answers on my questions.

Which are: how many people had develop side effect due to vaccination?

Did anyone determine is it up to one specific producer, is it up to virus or things that are included in vaccines?

Is it possible with DNA analyses to do prevention and find out is there possibility for epilepsy, autism or other mental disorders? And if yes which one?

As scientist I am dealing with prevention of natural and man made hazards. It requires multidisciplinary background and being able to work with people from different professions.

One of research we conducted was about PSBs in breast milk.

So, yes I do statistics but statistic data can be manipulated and it is not the same results if you use different methods and there are rules which methods one can use on which kind of data (continues time series or point data, data with or without autocorrelation and etc.)

That is science, that is math, that is statistics.

Children are not statistics and each should be considered valuable. One child lost for benefit of society is not much, but for mother is everything.

I am saying that if we give antibiotics with caution we should do same with vaccines. And I do not see why judging me because I ask for cause why things happen. SIDS happen. Young mothers just die developing diseases not expected for their age.

I am not MD but I work with them, I listen about what kind of poison can harm people. How time of exposure can mean difference between life or death.

But I am not activist against vaccines, I really do not find relevant to say people what to do, but I think I can ask questions and ask over and over again till everything is clear. Till people stop saying that vaccines are 100% safe. I will be happy if I hear doctor saying that vaccines are safe in 95% or whatever but not 100%.

“Till people stop saying that vaccines are 100% safe. I will be happy if I hear doctor saying that vaccines are safe in 95% or whatever but not 100%.”

I have never seen anyone claim “that vaccines are 100% safe.” Have you? If you can’t name anyone, then is that actually the basis for your beliefs? Or is it possible that you’re searching for ways to justify a belief you hold for some other reason?

confusedbylogicApril 20, 2016 / 9:13 pm

“I am saying that if we give antibiotics with caution we should do same with vaccines. And I do not see why judging me because I ask for cause why things happen. SIDS happen. Young mothers just die developing diseases not expected for their age.

I am not MD but I work with them, I listen about what kind of poison can harm people. How time of exposure can mean difference between life or death.”

Please have one of your MD buddies (preferably with bona fides we can verify) come on here and evaluate those few lines. Because you are either not listening to a thing they say, or else there is something very, very wrong with their medical education.
In order to say those lines together demonstrates such an utter lack of understanding of anything about human medicine that, well, it’s “not even wrong.”

AnnaApril 20, 2016 / 11:22 pm

again, why so much anger?

exposure to a pollutant or poison in small amounts can pass without consequences. Fact is that each human organism is different.

honestly, there are so many things wrong with society today, and vaccines are just tip of iceberg.

if paper against vaccines comes out it is fraud but papers that support vaccines are not. Pediatricians to one generation give some vaccines than they decide to another it is not necessary.

Each and every country has their lists of vaccines that are mandatory.

As for example, to leave vaccines on side, due to overuse of antibiotics in treatments some strains of bacteria Escherichia coli became resistant to antibiotics. So for that reason groups of antibiotics are kept only for really resistant bacteria. When bacteria is tested in two different persons, even that is it 100% sure that one infected another, they do not have same strain. As each individual is having different immune reaction on bacteria.

Usually people will get wide spectrum antibiotic to cover as many bacteria as possible, unfortunately sometimes you have to go through three different therapies before you put Escherichia under control.

What is interesting about that bacteria as that is dormant in humans urinary system and very good in keeping other “bad” bacteria to come and attack. But, if you change pH balance of your system it can overproduce.

Now, I leave possibility that some people have different reaction and tolerance on composition of vaccines. That is even admitted by CDC and producers, it is even allowed to skip vaccinations due to possibility of allergically reactions.

Allergy and sensitivity or intolerance are quite different. I am sure you know about lactose intolerant people, gluten intolerance, and etc.

Only what I am thinking that should be changed in application of vaccines, is that all information about content of vaccines and producers is available to parents and as you know there are different manufacturers so people can chose.

If you are drinking water you want to know is it anything added to it. We all drink water, we all need it but I am sure that people in Flint are not happy of not being informed about danger of drinking theirs.

Why after bad things happen they say no this or no that, simple because they do not test long enough to be sure that each and every ingredient is safe. Six months is not enough to ensure quality.

When you say vaccine for DTP you have many brands of vaccine for same thing.

Even if you look in your personal immunization records there is box where they have to type which brand you got.

Do you choose brand of car you drive or you would be fine just with any government gives you? Or beer? Imagine world where you have to take whatever government choses for you, from food to type of the house, all live in the same, all people get same size of shoes and pants. Why not, you agree that we all are the same by not giving the option to choose the brand, to check the label and content, to pre test your kid on possible allergies on ingredients. Why? Vaccination is important why not to do it properly to be safe for every child as every child needs to be protected. We are so advanced with technology is it so big deal to make vaccines for different groups, like shoes size 42 and shoes size 38.

I just wonder why to gamble when we can ensure safety for kids, find markers, make delivery system in vaccines more safe. Like with antibiotics.

Problem here of you who will take bits and parts of my comments and try what to scare me, make me miserable? I am not pro or anti, I do question is there safer way and better way than it is now?

There are vaccines that kids drink instead to be injected, place of administration of vaccines is different.

Someone said there is millions of pathogens, true. Little girls and boys face them every day. We cannot develop enough medications and vaccines to protect humanity from everything, you have Zika virus now. Ebola. Malaria is still problem (btw it is not virus). TBC, still mandatory in some countries. AIDS (no vaccine). Ah, not to start with possible parasites you can get, pesticides poisoning, SOx, PSBs, people mentioned many others, it is long list of harmful things, ah radiation. Fukushima radiation through oceans is half away to west coast of North America. I would not eat salmon from Pacific.

So, depending of where you are living to some you will be exposed and some you would not meet ever in your life.

Due the nature how “childhood” diseases are spreading we assume that eventually everyone would get in touch with them in some moment in time so we as society decided better to prevent them.

Point is that many people are not vaccinated and did not get disease, lots of cases of vaccinated ones who got disease, as said by CDC vaccines are not 100% effective.

To be sure that your vaccine is actually protecting you there are easy tests you can do.

Living life in fear of illness is not life. So, for things that there is not cure but there is prevention we vaccinate.

Now, new problems appeared that with time some people just do not react on vaccine as we expect them to and they suffer.

They develop some other illnesses, some of them died, but instead to focus why that happens society is ignoring them, pushing them on side and holds on statement vaccines are good as they are, they are checked etc.

If car manufacturer sends car on market and people die due to malfunction of the car, manufacturer is due to take back car from the sale, pay damage and ensure that all owners of the car are informed about possibility that malfunction happens.

Now, why it is not same thing with vaccines?

confusedbylogicApril 21, 2016 / 8:34 am

A) Not even angry
B) What you’ve just written is a perfect example of the following:
“When people thought the earth was flat, they were wrong. When people thought the earth was spherical, they were wrong. But if you think that thinking the earth is spherical is just as wrong as thinking the earth is flat, then your view is wronger than both of them put together.”

If you think that because the process of science improves the quality of our knowledge year by year means that it’s just as likely that all the scientifically derived information is completely wrong and it is just as reasonable to ignore all of it and just make up stuff, that conclusion is “not even wrong.”

annaApril 21, 2016 / 11:23 am

OK, can you with absolute certainty tell me that there is no connection between age and development level of organism of the child and his general health and reaction on vaccine? Can you exclude absolutely that vaccine will not trigger allergic reaction or influence imeture organs to fail their function?

In none of my statements I said that you should not vaccinate, I said that schedule should be in accordance with child and that there should be better delivery systems into organism . That process of checking and testing vaccines by each available brand should be same, no shortcuts and early releases without prescribed process of checking.

Now tell me how anything what I say is against vaccination?

Is it so bad to ask that vaccines are safe for every child?

I am not saying that MMR is causing autism or that there is conspiracy, I think it is neglect and lack of care for those who are more vulnerable.

For example do you know that not each pill for pregnancy control is adequate for every woman?

Why you think that each child is safe to be vaccinated at 4 month or at the birth or at 18 months?

ChrisApril 19, 2016 / 9:46 pm

“Dear Chris I explained you which area of science.”

Sorry I missed it in all the other stuff you wrote, and I just went through all of your replies and did not see it. Please tell me again. Just tell me the field of science and level of education without all of the other stuff.

Also, I only know one answer to the list of questions: “Is it possible with DNA analyses to do prevention and find out is there possibility for epilepsy, autism or other mental disorders? And if yes which one?”

No. Not yet. And possibly never.

My son has a genetic heart disorder, and he does not have any of the eighteen known genetic sequences. So obviously there is at least one they don’t know about.

That is just for an abnormal growth of a heart muscle. The brain is more complicated, so there would be thousand or even million more genetic sequences that cause issues with children.

For the rest of the questions, try the studies in the Vaccine Safety Datalink Program I posted, or just peruse PubMed. There have been studies in Germany, UK, Denmark, Japan, Finland, Canada and elsewhere.

ChrisApril 20, 2016 / 8:56 am

It is statements like this that make me very curious about your education in science and statistics:

Till people stop saying that vaccines are 100% safe. I will be happy if I hear doctor saying that vaccines are safe in 95% or whatever but not 100%.

Especially after giving you the links to the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Programs and the Vaccine Safety Datalink Program. As Colin mentioned, that is not a statement made about vaccines by those who know about them.

So what exactly is your science education? Because, despite your claims of statistical competence, it is not being shown in your comments.

ChrisApril 21, 2016 / 11:28 am

Anna: “OK, can you with absolute certainty tell me that there is no connection between age and development level of organism of the child and his general health and reaction on vaccine?”

That is a classic “Nirvana Fallacy.” Nothing is ever 100% certain. You are asking for something that is simply impossible.

Again, this is why I have doubts about your claims of working in science and using statistics.

annaApril 21, 2016 / 12:02 pm

Chris, I like your comments which show how you do not pay attention and do not care of what people actually write.

Because, I know that they cannot say vaccines are safe for all I ask for ensuring of safety of kids.

And honestly what is point of commenting one sentence without reading everything. Are you so negative that you attack people who actually do vaccinate and ask for more attention to be given to more vulnerable kids?

What is so horrible about me saying that schedule should be more personal?

OK, you can think whatever you want but how you proved that you are eligible to judge anyone as you do here?

Will you say that rise in cancer has nothing with pollution or food quality?

Till when you will deliberately pick bits and parts and judge instead to realize you did not gave any constructive opinion how to ensure better communication and implementation of vaccination program, how to avoid any sacrifice.

You did not offer what is cause of autism to parents who seek for answers.

You just want to make people feel bad.

Sorry, but while I am waiting for blood results and scheduling last vaccines for my boy in accordance to his health I wish many parents have same opportunity without being judged by people like you,

Who are you Chris in my life? Will you help me, give me support, find solutions? Will you help anyone not to get into trouble, will you put effort in preventing kids to be harmed or you will just not care.

Why are you here?

I want to tell people that there is way to get their child vaccinated and ensuring that they did everything for their safety. Why you are here?

Realize I will not answer on any comments of your which aim is only to provoke and judge. You will be ignored as all things you said about me I know are wrong as you do not know me.

If one parent decides to rethink and move on to ensure vaccination of his child or to ensure proof that child should not get vaccine instead to live in fear and assumptions because they read my lines I will be happy.

Because of people who behave like you, who are fast in judging and like to bully others, I do not trust to either of sides.

People should find pediatrician they trust and do best for child. What is your advice to all parents there?

ChrisApril 21, 2016 / 12:38 pm

“What is so horrible about me saying that schedule should be more personal?”

Because you are again asking for the impossible. Me pointing that out is not “bullying.”

For all the typing, typing, typing, typing you have done, I see no attempt that you are willing to learn. Again, this is a trait of someone who does not do real science like she claims.

annaApril 21, 2016 / 12:45 pm

Why it is impossible to provide personal schedule for vulnerable kids?

If all you say it is true, most of the kids would not fall in group of vulnerable ones and they would follow regular schedule.

So, what is your argument not to provide checking priory vaccination?

ChrisApril 21, 2016 / 2:03 pm

Anna: “Why it is impossible to provide personal schedule for vulnerable kids?”

Because human beings are complicated. If you actually worked in biological sciences you would know there are too many variables to account for, from variations in the codons, to previous unknown environmental exposures (like catching an illness prior to the appointment, but not showing symptoms), not knowing all of the genetic sequences that can cause problems. not knowing if the child will encounter a vaccine preventable disease before the personal magically scheduled vaccine appointment, and on and on and on… there are too many things you need to know.

Again, for asking for something that is impossible, you are falling for the Nirvana Fallacy in thinking a person can control all the variables of the environment and even their own body.

Here is an exercise for you: list all of the genetic sequences you can find that would be used to determine your personal vaccine schedule. Then tell us how much it would cost to do the genetic testing. Here is a hint: the test to find if my son had the eighteen known genetic sequences for his heart disorder cost about $3000 in the USA.

annaApril 21, 2016 / 2:48 pm

Maybe people are complicated but it is worth of investment to do preliminary screening, that is why instead of arguing people should look for solution. With improvement of technology screening will become cheaper.

If you read Dr Verbeek research about predisposed epilepsy and vaccines you would know that doctors already are saying that genetic diagnosis is important.

As well burden should not be on parents but doctors and government, institutions.

That is why research exist . I do not expect change over night but in five up to ten years there should be difference. Price of genetic testing is from 100 $ and up. Insurance covers most, checked on us national library of medicine Web site. For each country is different.

I am sure that doctors will find way to test blood from umbilical cord and get genetic markers.

To avoid all testing is important to know family history. As well pregnancy history and take into account complications on birth. And medical doctors and immunologist would say what else.

There are lots of things that can be improved. Answer people are complicated should not be obstacle to improve vaccination process.

Not stopping improvement of the system does not mean I think we can control everything but we can put effort to control as much as possible to show that each life matters.

ChrisApril 21, 2016 / 5:48 pm

Anna: “Maybe people are complicated but it is worth of investment to do preliminary screening, that is why instead of arguing people should look for solution. With improvement of technology screening will become cheaper. If you read Dr Verbeek research about predisposed epilepsy and vaccine…”

That is just one genetic sequence. Now go through the exercise and list each and every genetic sequence that would need to be sequenced.

Then go through and do the predictive probabilities that a child will not get infected by pertussis, tetanus, diphtheria, measles, mumps, Hib, and other vaccine preventable diseases before their “personal” schedule based on some magical formula you think exists lets them get that vaccine.

Uh, huh. Insurance did not fully cover my son’s. I have an idea, you get it working in your country so we can all see how well it will work. Otherwise do not make demands unless you can do the above exercise and be specific that you will cover all known genetic sequence with full costs accounted for (blood draws, storage, etc) and do the epidemiological predictions to assure a child does not encounter a pathogen before getting the vaccine.

annaApril 21, 2016 / 6:22 pm

So Chris to conclude, you say that we should do nothing. For you system is perfect as it is, right?

ChrisApril 21, 2016 / 7:18 pm

Anna: “So Chris to conclude, you say that we should do nothing.”

No, I am saying if you are demanding that the system be changed, that you do the work to get that done. You compile the lists of genetic sequences that must be tested for. You determine the criteria to set up that “personal vaccine schedule.” You figure out how much it will cost and who will pay for it. You set up the epidemiological prediction system to make sure a child will not catch a disease before getting the vaccine. You need to do it in your country, and then come back after a few years and tell how well it is working.

I used to volunteer in the schools that my kids went to. There were always parents who would demand that those who were willing to volunteer do something or other. The response by those of us who had been helping for a while was: “Well, if you want that to be done, then why don’t you set up a committee and come back when you have it all set up and ready to go.” On one project there was a group that kept telling me to change this or that — I finally had enough, gathered all the items and left them in the school office. When they called for more changes my husband just said “Oh, Chris just left it in the office for you guys to finish it up.” Then they learned first hand how the cheap stupid software they were forcing me to use just could not do what they wanted it to do (example: they wanted different fonts, that idiotic piece of bovine excrement did not even allow bold nor italic letters).

Hence my attitude to those whose mantra is “I want this! I want that! Do it this way!” is just to say “Do it yourself.”

“For you system is perfect as it is, right?”

I do not subscribe to the Nirvana Fallacy. What actually do is trust that our public health officials and the in the USA the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (there should be something similar in your country) are qualified epidemiologists, immunologists, public health experts and medical professionals will do what is best for the whole population, including those who have medical issues that make them more vulnerable to diseases.

annaApril 21, 2016 / 7:48 pm

Well Chris I hope that what you wrote make you feel better, happier and more accomplished. You yourself said, people are complicated. I do for my kids and I do not demand I suggest. I share my thoughts. My thoughts are important just to those who think of them.

This is place for open discussion.

Robert de Niro last month shared his project. Fact is that there are people who doubt in system you believe in.

I hope you are right and no harm are done to any child anywhere in the world.

I am going to play with my kids, and do things to ensure that some future kids still have clean environment and future to plan.

And introducing a new protocol for vaccine administration is really similar to volunteering.

Was nice to hear your thoughts all best to you and your family!

gewisnApril 20, 2016 / 12:37 am

As someone with an open mind, you must have thought about this a lot, so I’d really like to know:
What sort of evidence or information would convince you that no vaccine on the current US pediatric schedule, in the recommended order and combinations, is more dangerous than the risk of the illnesses they are meant to prevent?

What sort of information, what sort of study design, from what sort of source, published/broadcast in what sort of form would you find completely convincing?

To be honest as I explained , I would like that when child is born pediatrician sits with me gives me plan, gives information on producers, options, make plan for my child, check his health and possible genetic problems, …

I mean for insurance I write novel of my life, they take my blood, urine, scans, want to know everything and for vaccination not?

If I am sick they always ask what things and remedies I am already taking to be sure not to combine things that do not go together, but they will inject to new born baby without any screening a vaccine?

Each and every single doctor will ask you for your allergies but they are not checking babies priory vaccination, they expect you to know does breastfed baby has allergy on eggs?

I would like to see more effort. All brand listed, like for cars and air lines.

I do not want to hear generic that MMR causes autism, which MMR, which producer? not all MMR are exactly the same.

I want to get my baby first into my hands, than to sit with pediatrician, go through family history, check baby markers (blood can be taken from umbilical cord ) and as baby is at home for a year up to three that is enough time to schedule each vaccine and re vaccine.

YES it would be expensive, I am willing to invest in that.

I mean if baby is not in any chance exposed to hepatitis B why to give shoot immediately just as because that is rule, as someone does not want to waste time on doing risk assessment for each baby.

well I am for risk assessment for each family, you want to be mandatory offer that. Till than I will insist on blood check ups and taking vaccines one by one with delay to be sure on what my child reacts. I will wait to introduce food priory vaccination to be sure that he is not allergic to eggs, and milk and other stuff in vaccines. I will go to buy and invest in vaccine which label I can read, and discuss with pediatrician. If pediatrician thinks that is waste of time than for sure cannot expect from me to just accept possibility that my child is 1 in couple of thousands that will get some reaction listed.

I hope I gave you enough things what would make me more comfortable in using vaccination system.

gewisnApril 21, 2016 / 8:38 am

Anna,
Thank you for answering. I really do appreciate that.
But I’ll admit that I’m not sure your response answers
“what sort of information would convince you that no vaccine on the current US vaccine schedule is more dangerous than the risk of the diseases that it prevents?”

What you answered seems to be about what would make you trust that the physician was paying attention to your family and your baby (a completely understandable goal), but not really the same question.

annaApril 21, 2016 / 11:08 am

Gewish I did not say anything time that they are more dangerous, I said they can be risk for some kids, like my premature one, whose nerve system and other things are not on same development level as of full term babies, or my older one who was born with iron deficiency and when he got vaccine they did not know he would react with immunity crash. I just would like that my pediatrician was more informed about fact that he was intolerant on lactose and his digestive system was having other problems and when they gave him DTP he had bad reactions simple issue is that I would like information what kind of genetic disorders or development delays should post pone time of vaccination.

I am for vaccination and I moved to another country and here pediatrician now has understanding and we are doing vaccines one by one. School is fine with that and older one got all vaccines and he is healthy now. They just put more effort that they are getting vaccine in period when their chronic issues are not interfereing.

Because of some ingredients we are informed about different brands. Is that problem to become a rule? Why I was pressed and judged and humiliated as a parent prior finding this pediatrician to who I drive 25km. Approx. 40 min. In good traffic.

I was persistent to ensure health care quality for my kids. I would like that there is more understanding for kids with odd stuff. I want to vaccinate them and in same time I do not want to agree with attitudes that someone has to be sacrifice.

I wish that they explain better delivery process and what that will mean for my child. Am I asking too much? That if I trust to my pediatrician that he or she actually pays attention that vaccine can be risk for him. And that maybe waiting month or two or six is better. As we do now. He got MMR after second birthday because our neurologist agreed that it is safer to wait. He was just fine, but to get that understanding he had to have really bad reaction on hepatitis vaccine and multi one?

I am just calling on understanding for cases where I want to vaccinate and I want vaccines to be safer. That there is more research on how neurological development stage influence reaction on vaccine.

For example with antibiotics it is not same dose for each child. It depends on weight. And still all kids get same vaccines. When new born has 2 kg or 3kg or 4 kg it is not the same.

I do not want like nuts persons to check each paper and credibility of the author I want that my pediatrician has read all the papers and did that work for all of his patients and that when I ask a question about iron deficiency and vaccine that he recommends exact brand that he is sure it’s safe for kids with that problem.

I hope I gave you the answer. Sorry for any misspellings

gewisnApril 21, 2016 / 8:22 pm

I’m not at all worried about your spelling. You’re doing that fine. You’re putting in plenty of effort to be understood and it’s working.

You’ve been very clear about what would make you trust your doctor more.

However, No you didn’t answer at all what sort of information would make you believe that all the vaccines on the current US vaccination schedule are safer (i.e. present less risk), for every single child, even yours, than the risk of contracting the illnesses they prevent.

You keep telling me what you do believe. I’m asking what would make you change your mind.

And the reason I’m asking is that it’s a truly critical question.
Until a person can identify what would make him/her change their mind, it cannot be changed. Such people are not open to new information, greater understanding. Their minds are closed on the subject.

If your answer is, “Nothing. Nothing could make me change my mind,” I’ll accept that and thank you for being honest.

But if your mind isn’t closed on the subject, please take a few minutes and tell me what sort of information could, if it was available, change your mind completely and have you convinced that the current vaccination schedule presents less risk, for every single child (who is eligible to be vaccinated according to the CDC guidelines) than the risk of contracting the illnesses they prevent?

There’s no need to read into what I’ve said, which is nothing. I haven’t made any claim about vaccines, just asked questions about how you go about deciding things.

suzanne cyrJune 5, 2017 / 12:14 am

yep,, collateral damage,,
and medical errors killing hundreds of thousands,, and it is not headline news,,,
and that is the deaths that they admit,, not the ones where they were able to pass it off as caused by something else,

wow no way did you just say that. It is really easy to say something like you just said because autism can be devastating thing to live with. Trust me when I say a dead child is worse than dying yourself because you live with a broken heart every single day of your life. Your child is not autistic because of a vaccine. There are numerous studies which prove that. The fact that you believe your child having autism is worse than them being dead is mindblowing though. I can tell you if my son was alive and all Id have to do is live with him being autistic I would take that deal in a millisecond. Anyone with an autistic child still has their child.

Easy to say after watching my eldest child regress, actually. She’s nearly non-verbal, even now (she’ll be 10 this summer) and she has serious developmental delays in many areas… and she absolutely did regress, from the age of about 15 months to about 3 years (lost the few words/phrases she did know, stopped her rudimentary attempts at using cutlery, reduced the amount of eye contact she gave, stopped responding to her name, etc).

However, I already had some concerns about her development; some months before she started to regress, I’d noticed things that I now know suggest autism. For example, despite knowing and using some words, she never really babbled in the developmentally appropriate way; although she made eye contact, she didn’t really imitate facial expressions and she stared at people in an unusually intense manner; from the time she could walk, which was 10 months, she’s preferred walking on tip-toe; from the time she could control her hand movements, when happy or excited, she’s done hand-flapping; when she was about 11 months old she started lining things up and doing other repetitive activities (I could give more examples, but I think that’ll do).

None of my concerns, nor the resultant fear I experienced at the time, nor her subsequent diagnosis of “classic” autism, nor the myriad challenges we face as a family, could ever make me think life would be better without her. If I had to do it all over again, there is no doubt in my mind that I would vaccinate her on schedule that time around, just like I did the first time.

And given the choice again, that’s exactly what I did do–when her brother was born, she was already well into the diagnostic process to confirm what we all suspected (autism, in an almost comically textbook presentation) and he’s fully up-to-date on all his vaccinations, too. And he’s also autistic (albeit in a way that usually affects him less/is milder) and didn’t regress at all, and even if he had regressed, or if he were “more” autistic (like his sister) I still wouldn’t regret my choice to ensure their health to the best of my ability.

I don’t know about anyone else’s kids, but my children are wonderful. Never doubt that they are full and complete human beings, with nuanced personalities, hobbies and interests of their own, likes and dislikes, and in each case, a really funny, quirky, silly sense of humour. I admit, in many ways they require a lot more care than other children their ages, and I worry every day about what will happen to them when I’m gone… but none of that outweighs the fact of their existence, which is the great and constant joy of my life.

Again, I will readily admit, they struggle so much more than is fair, some days; and as their mother, I struggle with them… but overall, they are obviously happy. Like any child in a loving home, with their needs met and enough of their wants catered to, my 2 delight in simply being; and they’ve only made my life, oh, about a dozen times richer and more fulfilling by being in it. And knowing all that, I have to ask: what kind of ignorant and destructive mind-set would even suggest that my children might be better off dead, or suffering the devastating effects of preventable disease, rather than being healthy and autistic? How on earth would it improve my kids’ lives if, on top of developmental delays, they had to contend with brain damage from measles, or paralysis from polio, or…? Please explain that reasoning to me, if you imagine you can.

By the way, my second child also had language development problems, but they were resolved after a year of therapy. I was pregnant with my third child when the neurologist told me my sons’ speech/language problems were most likely genetic.

My youngest was the first of my children to get both the Hib and HepB vaccines (not rotavirus nor chickenpox — she actually got chickenpox when she was six months old). That youngest child, who had more vaccines than her brothers, graduated with a BA in Linguistics Cum Laude (with honors, though there are two levels above — but that is good enough!). So the “too many, too soon” bit is not my experience (which is only an anecdote… she also got the HPV series!, and meningcoccal, HepA, TDaP and several yearly influenza vaccines, I know this because I had to scan her shot record to send it to the university to verify her measles vaccines before they would allow her to sign up for classes as a freshman, so I have a copy on my laptop).

She plans to go to grad school to become a speech/language therapist.

My second child was the first to get the Hib vaccine. He was also the one with language problems, but he did freak out the neurologist by solving a wood puzzle quicker than most children at his first appointment (three years old). He has a BA in Math anda good job as a system analyst.

He wonders if his sister was not subliminally primed to become an SLP because she spent so much time as a baby and toddler in therapy observation and waiting rooms. 🙂 She says she does not remember that. Who knows?

“I worry every day about what will happen to them when I’m gone…”

Here is a very weird series of words you need to learn about: “Inter Vivos Special Needs Trust.” Find your local ARC chapter. They have workshops for parents on services and how to plan for the future. Just this past week I attended a workshop on how to understand our state’s department that serves the developmentally disabled presented by our local ARC. Though I really learned about special needs trusts through workshops at the local Children’s Hospital. But that is just local, which means it deals only with our state’s laws. So start with ARC, which would know your state’s laws better.

My oldest, who is autistic (and the least vaccinated), did a fantastic job today at an intake interview. He remembered dates when I did not. All one had to do was be patient while he spoke because it took him a bit to pull out the words (despite ten years of speech/language therapy, which is still good since he was totally nonverbal at age three). He even remembers to lock the doors when he leaves the house, something his academically smarter sister often failed to do.

Thank you for your appreciation; it’s nice to feel that someone else understands, and your comments always seem very reasonable and positive, to me. Much like the way I view my own children, you seem to see yours as worth it all and worthwhile, regardless of any challenges they might face. I approve.

I love the link you put up, but (despite being an American myself, and no doubt “sounding” like one on here) I actually live in the UK, and if there are international chapters of the ARC, I couldn’t find them. It’s alright; we live in a place that has something similar (it’s county-wide, rather than national) and there are options for short breaks, respite, discounts on certain activities or days out for the kids, extracurricular clubs they can join, etc; and of course, in the UK, there are some services offered through the NHS (for the moment, despite budget cuts from this government, most of the local services for autistic kids are still open). Overall, I’d have to say that the State will probably take decent care of my babies, if it ever comes to that–we live just down the road from an assisted-living situation, which has 3 (I think 3?) young adults, all autistic men, living in a house with carers who stay 24 hours and who help the young men with basic needs, transportation, etc, but who largely give the young men the opportunity for as much independence as they can have.

But. I’m not sure that is the State’s doing–it could be arranged privately, by people who can pay for their adult children to be so well looked after–and so, I worry. And study (one year of university left) so that when I graduate, I’ll be able to get a job that pays well, and hopefully put some money aside. Although how I will ever be able to put enough money aside, if both of my children turn out to require full-time care as adults… for my sake, I’d just have them live with me until I couldn’t look after them anymore, because I’ll miss them if/when they move out; but for their sakes, I look at that little house down the road, and the 3 young men who live as independently as they can, and I hope 🙂

All your children are grown, then, from what you’ve said–whether they’re more or less academically capable, they all sound as if they’re fully-fledged members of society, and they have something of that independence I so want for mine… any tips for me, from someone who’s pretty much raised their children (not that the sense of responsibility for them ever goes away, I imagine)? I’ve got another 10 years of raising mine, give or take 🙂

My oldest is still not quite independent, but we are working on it. He still lives with us, and we are working with therapists, etc to get him a job and transition to independent living. I think we need to find all the help we can get, and ask questions. My “go to” phrase when I am dealing with social services and therapy providers is “I don’t know what I am doing, help me!”

Prior to the anti-vaccination movement, we didn’t really have an unvaccinated population to study to determine the rate of autism among unvaccinated children. We now do have such a population, so we can put this to rest.

In April, 2015, the Journal of the American Medical Association completed a study of the rate of autism in a population of 95,000 children, including 8,000 unvaccinated through the age of 5. By the age of 5, 1% of unvaccinated children (approximately 80 out of the 8,000) were diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder and only 0.75% of children who had followed the recommended vaccination program were diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder. (JAMA, Vol 313, No. 15)

So I guess I am OK with your contract, as long as families who don’t vaccinate their children also have to pay $1,000,000. If the rate of unvaccinated families continues to rise, the ASD diagnoses in that group will more than fund your program.

And I am sure that these 80 families (and the rest of the anti-vaccination families dealing with ASD diagnosis in their children) who are shocked to find their children diagnosed with ASD despite avoiding the supposed cause of autism are thrilled to have the double benefit of both dealing with the challenges of raising a child with ASD and higher risk of harmful and potentially fatal, yet preventable disease.

I would like to start off by saying I am not anti-vax! With that in mind I also have a daughter with Autism. I also believe that the MMR shot caused HER Autism. I do not believe it causes all Autism. I do believe that it has caused others Autism. I believe there are some kids that can’t handle certain vaccines. It has happened on both sides of her family mine and her dads. I believe she was predisposed and that particular vaccine triggered her onset. Like any other medicine you can give it to a million ppl and some will have reactions while most will not. The day my daughter got her shot she was healthy and doing just fine. 45 mins later she had a fever of 106.9 and then everything changed within a couple days she was smashing her face into walls she completely stopped talking and regressed. She is now 4 and has all of her shots except her second round of the MMR but I had he checked through blood work and she is immune and every year I will get her checked and once it wears off I will get her revaccinated for it. I would never tell a parent not to vaccinate I would never shame anyone. I went against my gut on just this one and I’m paying for it. I have a very difficult life bc I let the dr pressure me into it when I knew that there was a family history of this kind of reaction. We do so much therapy it would make your head spin. I just wanted to wait till she was a little older to give it to her not deny it completely. I also do not shame those who are completely against it (I used to think it was ridiculous not to vaccinate) but I now see what can happen. I love my little girl and it is so hard on a daily basis but that is what happened. Ppl tell me it wasn’t the vaccine, it was the fever that caused her problems but had she not has that shot that day there would have been so high rising fever. I’m on both sides for various reasons. I think vaccines are great but even something as simple as antibiotics give ppl different reactions why would you think vaccines wouldn’t. What I hate about the vaccine debate is that ppl are shaming and so hateful. Put yourselves in someone else’s shoes. Ppl have lost kids they had gotten vaccines and ppl have lost kids because they didn’t vaccinate. Every single body can respond differently. I honestly don’t think anyone is out to hurt anyone with their choice. I just ask ppl to be less hateful. Being a parent is hard enough. I regret my choice daily but I live with it and now it’s a part of my life and it’s a huge struggle. I also realize there are worse things than Autism like polio and measles but when you are the one living with Autism your whole life changes. The softball mom thing out the window as well as dance classes, sleepovers, girl scouts and many other things a pregnant woman looks forward to. I just wish everyone would take a step back and not be so aggressive. We all love our children and one of the most hurtful things you can throw at a mother is saying they are hurting their child or they must not really love their children because of their choice on the vaccination debate. Use love not hate to spread your message. I hope this helps someone out there!!!

Vaccines almost always come with fevers even the hospital told me the fever was most likely caused by thr vaccine as well as her pediatrician. She always got a low grade fever 101 with her vaccines. That would be quite a coincidence she was fine and 45 mins later having a fever out of nowhere from normal to 106.9

And no I did not file a claim. I was very busy getting my daughter the medical attention and getting her the help she needed. We now do therapy 10 times a week Monday through Friday and had to move away from our entire family (out of state) to get her the help she DESPERATELY needed

You are full of questions so let me ask you a few. How many children do you have? Of those children how many have a severe disability that you have had to coordinate services for while finishing your semester in college, and working full time to support your child as well as getting to and from speech therapy, occupational therapy as well as figuring out where to move to so that we could get the specific services that were recommended for that child but is not available in the current state you live in? No I didn’t have time to argue with a court I had more important things to do instead of fighting a battle that won’t help my child get any better. I chose to work had right away and do what needed to be done. Now we live 3 and a half hours away from our entire family so that she could get the help she needed because this was the closest place that had the services she needed.

I have three children. My first had problems starting his second day of life and was transported by ambulance. Then just after his first birthday he had a major seizure due to a disease before the vaccine existed. He could not speak at age two, so started speech therapy then. He was started in special ed. when he was three. He “graduated” from speech therapy when he was in 8th grade. Then in 9th grade he was diagnosed with obstructive hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. After a few 911 calls to our house, some trips to the emergency department, and a hospitalization he was referred for surgery at the Mayo Clinic.

The younger boy needed language therapy for a while. Possibly due to having a non-verbal older siblings.

So I know about speech/language therapy, OT/PT, cardiac rehabilitation, neurologists, cardiologists, psychologists, IEP meetings and now a rehab counselor, social coach and job coach (he is almost thirty and still needs therapy). And at one point doing it while building a house… which we did much of the work (bathroom cabinets are still not done!). Right now my kitchen table is full of paperwork so that he can get services like supported employment and housing. (helpful hint: save everything, but also scan it, convert it to a pdf, and then when you need to provide the medical, educational, legal, etc stuff, just send it to a printer, I just did that with the Power of Attorney).

The kids also got chicken pox before its vaccine was available. First the three year old got it, and then he passed it to his siblings, including the six month old baby. The oldest was so horribly sick, and the baby just cried and cried and cried. This is while I was transporting them to a total of five therapy appointments(hubby doesn’t remember because he was working sixty plus hours per week). Fun times. Which is why I am not too keen about people who think it is okay for kids to get the disease (which does also include high fevers).

If you go to a Parent2Parent gathering held by your local ARC you will find lots of people who have kids with worse issues. They don’t tend to be as judgemental as the parent/toddler group I was in that told me to stop talking about my oldest’s doctor, therapy and hospitalizations (he actually got released from the hospital for the third time the day before his special ed. preschool evaluation appointment). If you live too far from where the groups physically meet (and they try to cover as much as they can) there are online groups for parents. Be careful about discussing vaccines around the parents of kids with severe immune disorders.

Sorry you could not find time within three years to file a NVICP claim. You might have been able to get it under a table injury. Hopefully you are getting services from your state’s disability department (especially respite).

I’m sorry to hear that. I do get good services 3 hours away from everything I know. Being a single mom I didn’t have time to fight that as you stated mounds of paperwork to get the help she needed right away. We all are just trying to do what is best for our kids but the hate and condemning is useless. I’m sorry you went through all that. I believe vaccines are amazing but I don’t believe they are one size fits all and think the vaccine schedule should be revised for many reasons. I wish you the best of luck with your children and hope you get the respite you need as well! 💗

There are people who do not judge, you did your duty as many of us. As I pointed out many times in post today while preparing my nerves to take my child to vaccination and not disturbing my close environment and trying to behave like that is something routine and unimportant. Both groups anti and pro, neither give effective solution for families with consequences. Pro will say it is for greater good, anti will say “oo, you see we are right”, but at night and at home those people are strangers, they are not there to hold your baby, to not sleep with you, to pay your bills, smile instead of you, there are not beside in hospital where your time is passing and you wish that your child is on playground happy and without worries.

I just call for more understanding, for less hate. As finally those who suffer cannot fight for themselves.

Your welcome and I believe there will never be an agreement on this issue. So many people are sooooo for it or sooooo against it that it makes it hard to have an open dialogue without threats and horrid accusations of parents not loving their kids because they are injecting them with poison or they hate their children because they refuse to vaccinate so that leads to the parent wanting their child to die from a very preventable disease. It’s terrible I wish more people were more open minded and not so full of hate but I also understand that both sides have seen devastating effects and I know when all of this happened I was sooooooooooo against vaccines I was never going to do it again but then the fire died out. I will always have a different schedule from now on. One at a time and very spread out. Thank you for having an open mind when reading my story!!!

I was off to bed, but really had to finish reading your comment. With something so important as vaccination, it is no wonder why both sides get riled up. I just want to thank you for your comment, as such reminders are important sometimes, and I really hope a lot of people take their time reading this even though they might not comment. It’s from the heart, and with a clear message. Shaming and being condecending never made anyone change their opinion. I’m not anti-vax either, but you certainly won my respect.

Based on what?
Are you going to give the “she was fine until the vaccine” story?

Did she drink water within the days prior to getting the autism?
Did she breathe the air in your home in the days prior to getting the autism?

Did she eat a vegetable within the 30 after getting the autism?
(can you prove autism doesn’t cause eating vegetables?)

Look, I really am sorry that anyone is having to deal with these difficulties,
but you really do have to admit that she was “fine” right up until that last drink of water right before she started to show symptoms.

If all you have is post hoc ergo propter hoc, please
“move along, these are not the blogs you’re looking for.”

Based on the family history of the very exact thing happening on both sides of her family one on her dad’s side and 5 on my side. I wanted to wait till she was a little older and the dr. pushed even after I explained my fear and the family history so I gave in and bam our lives changed forever. And these ARE the blogs I’m looking for. I’m sharing MY story and MY experience. Her pediatrician even said she has never seen a kid change so fast and then admitted maybe we should have waited on that one vaccination. You can be a bully all you want about it but just because my opinion is different than yours doesn’t mean I’m wrong. You’re just upset because I can put my story here well get over it. You can give a million people a medication as innocent as and safe as penicillin and you better believe it’s going to cause some reactions so why would we think of vaccines any other way? They are not one size fits all and not everyone can handle them the same. I’m not an anti-vax I just believe the schedule should be revised and a parents concerns should be carefully considered and not so easily swept under the rug. My daughter even after all of her problems is fully vaccinated. I don’t go out there telling people not to vaccinate. I believe vaccines are a huge medical advancement, one of the greatest achievements we will probably ever seen in this lifetime but I also feel my daughter couldn’t handle it well due to some kind of predisposition and I was ignored and I believe that was wrong!

“Are you going to give the “she was fine until the vaccine” story?”
You did. It’s hard to believe it, but that’s exactly what you did.

Did she drink water within the days prior to getting the autism?
Did she breathe the air in your home on the days prior to getting the autism?

If you believe it must be true because other people in your family think autism is a condition that comes on suddenly one day (it’s not, and frankly you’re smarter than to think that), then how do you know it wasn’t that last drink of water, or the last breath of air, or the seats in the doctor’s waiting room for that matter, that she encountered right before she “turned” autistic – and not the vaccines at all?

Didn’t the others on both sides of the family drink water and breathe air right before turning autistic?
Your reasoning would make the water or the air a more likely cause because she had more sips of water, more breaths of air, leading up to her suddenly turning autistic than she had vaccines.

If you honestly believe “A happened before B, therefore A must be the cause of B” (poor reasoning, and you bloody well know it) then why aren’t you attributing her autism to a “build up” of effects from the water, the air, the carpet, the trees outside your home, or any one of the other 10.000 things she encountered “before” she turned autistic.

What’s your evidence that it had anything to do with the vaccines – other than that you’d like that to be the cause?

As I said, I really am sorry that your daughter has a condition that makes her life and yours so much more challenging in many ways.

We’ve already spent untold millions of public research time and money looking for this suspected connection, and it just isn’t there. That’s money we’ve lost from doing other research or going toward treatments for kids who need it. Money that could have been going to autism prevention or treatment. Precisely how much more money needs to be thrown down that hole before you’d be willing to admit, “Oh, I guess maybe I was wrong.”
What exactly would it take, what sort of research would satisfy you, in order for you to give up this mistaken belief?
Or is there, in fact, nothing. Nothing that would change your mind because it’s entirely closed on the subject. You are convinced and there is no amount or type of new information that you would ever let change your conclusion.
Because if that’s the case, if your mind is closed on the subject and you are unwilling to be convinced no matter what the evidence, then conversation with you on the matter is just like the money and time spent on the last 18 years of research (based on an admitted con man perpetrating a fraud in medical research), a waste.

With millions and millions of kids getting vaccines and zero, ZERO detectable connection between vaccines and autism what is it that you have to think about yourself in order to believe that You have the proof of the connection “but they just won’t listen to me?”

As a family physician of 37 years I get my daughter immunized regularly and will pay for vaccines not currently covered by our medical plan. Those who don’t immunize are guilty of child abuse. Explain to your son when he is an adult why he is sterile from a fully preventable mumps infection.

I believe child abuse is a bit extreme. Vaccines are very scary for some parents. My daughter had a bad reaction and her pediatrician even confirmed it was a reaction to the vaccination and she had never seen a kid change so quickly. 5 months later she was diagnosed with Autism. She stopped talking, making eye contact, mimicking and then she started slamming her face into walls giving herself black eyes and chipping her teeth. Bad reactions are very common my daughters case I realize is a bit extreme but I honestly believe all parents are trying to do what is best for their child. I’m not antivax she is current on her shot but I think child abuse is a bit extreme.

“My daughter had a bad reaction and her pediatrician even confirmed it was a reaction to the vaccination and she had never seen a kid change so quickly.”

Please provide those medical records and the contact info for the doctor.
We will have it published across the world.
If the statement above can be verified, we will finally have the evidence to change vaccine practices world-wide.

It makes me really sad that people will actually put their own and other people’s children at risk by not vaccinating them. Some beliefs don’t just have consequences for yourself, but for other people as well. For children in this case!!

pesticide poisonings,, perhaps through the water,, fluoride,
somebody hasn’t been doing their research,
doctors are getting away with deaths of children,, and adults through their faulty bunk drugs ‘that they push,,,,,, step up and get your free train ride to Germany ,, and that free hitler shower,, it is free,, don’t you believe in taking showers?!!!!!

Best article I have read about vaccinations. It gets straight to the point, and does so without being confrontational. I hope this will at least provoke some to question the anti-vaxxer movement. Thank you for writing this. It is more important than ever.

” I hope this will at least provoke some to question the anti-vaxxer movement ”
Are we having a hard time finding people to QUESTION the ANTI-VAXXER MOVEMENT?
Wow. Feel the pressure. As for the article, no, this is a typically one-sided presentation. One really good giveaway is how vaccines are either all good, or all bad. The US Supreme Court has labelled them as “unavoidably unsafe”. You can find the award-winning “For the Greater Good” film on its own site, or nowadays also on YouTube, and it won 8 awards, and they talk to both sides, for starters.

Cars, planes, peanuts, stairs, dogs, and most everything else is “unavoidably unsafe.” The problem is that measles, mumps, pertussis, etc are really much more “unsafe”, but they can be avoided with a vaccine.

“You can find the award-winning “For the Greater Good” film on its own site,…”

Chris, you offer an example of one side of the story. The author of the article does the same, as does sciencebasedmedicine.com. That helps us to understand what one side of the story looks like.

But there’s so much more than that. For example, The US vaccine claims court, as neither criminal nor civil (a no-fault claims court), is a unique legal process people may wish to see and question for themselves. A review of all of the ingredients in vaccines, and how they are and could be made is equally worthy of its own discussion. But in order to do this, there will have to be inputs from both sides. Here, for example, is something to question the history and efficacy of vaccines, since in the 20th Century, we see all disease, vaccinated or not, decline in the modern world (pre-vaccine) along with reduction in top disease vectors, such as sanitation and nutrition…https://childhealthsafety.wordpress.com/graphs/

I find far livelier debate within the topic of vaccination in this film than what I find in this author, or in your diligent self, Chris, as you appear to make it your business to quash any word to the contrary from your point of view.

The US vaccine claims court, as neither criminal nor civil (a no-fault claims court), is a unique legal process people may wish to see and question for themselves.

This is a very odd comment. Of course it’s not criminal–people don’t bring criminal claims themselves. Without the vaccine court, parents would be in state or federal district court bringing civil claims, not criminal ones. Nor is there any basis for bringing criminal charges against vaccine makers. This sounds like a rather heavy-handed attempt to poison the well by insinuating that vaccine makers are criminals without actually supporting the allegation.

The vaccine court is a great thing for parents. The rules are much easier for them than the rules in federal district court. They get free lawyers (of their own choosing) and don’t have to prove all the elements they would under the standard rule. The result is much, much, much faster and easier due process. Taking the vaccine court away from parents would mean many fewer cases brought as more parents would struggle to pay for lawyers and endure years in court.

A review of all of the ingredients in vaccines, and how they are and could be made is equally worthy of its own discussion. But in order to do this, there will have to be inputs from both sides.

What is needed is input from experts. By demanding an equal voice for “both sides,” you’re privileging anti-vaxers on the assumption that they have a voice that’s equal to that of actual experts on the subject. In other words, you’re picking inputs based on the conclusions they reach rather than the legitimacy of their process.

Actual experts have exhaustively reviewed the safety of vaccines (including their ingredients). The fact that conspiracy theorists won’t accept those reviews does not make the conspiracy theorists the equal of actual subject-matter experts.

Lest we bear in mind that we have a serious industry problem to contend with, with leading journal editors claiming that half of all of studies may simply be false, or not trustworthy.

They did not say that half of all studies across the board should be rejected. They specifically identified the problem of low-quality studies. Which is why savvy parties look for larger, more powerful, high-quality studies and metastudies. Which have been done with regards to vaccine safety and efficacy. Guess what they said? Your movie won’t tell you. Why not?

Hundreds of doctors and scientists have raised concerns regarding vaccines

Oh? Who? Can you name ten epidemiologists who disagree that vaccines are safe and effective?

Colin, Fyi the reason why the Vaccine Court was made in 1986 was due to pressure from the manufacturers, because they were paying too much in civil lawsuits against them, and said they couldn’t afford to make vaccines anymore and pay for the lawsuits. With the claims court, there is no guilt, and no manufacturer involved – they are free from all liability from any harm that may be caused, and one might be concerned in this case, because the pharmaceutical industry has a history of drawing multi-million and billion dollar suits against themselves, in some cases, knowing of the offenses committed in advance.

I have no idea why you would ask for epidemiologists on this; they tend to be at the opposite end of the spectrum from any etiology, but you can find over 160 relevant professionals on the greater good site linked previously. Also, many scientific studies there. Or, talk the people who conducted these studies, for example. In the face of all of this, there is still this “call to end any discussion”, and I’m going to call this out.
124 studies: https://www.scribd.com/doc/220807175/124-Research-Papers-Supporting-the-Vaccine-Autism-Link

The film stands as more worthy of an audience than anyone who simply takes one side.

“Colin, Fyi the reason why the Vaccine Court was made in 1986 was due to pressure from the manufacturers, because they were paying too much in civil lawsuits against them, and said they couldn’t afford to make vaccines anymore and pay for the lawsuits.”

Fyi the reason why the Vaccine Court was made in 1986 was due to pressure from the manufacturers, because they were paying too much in civil lawsuits against them, and said they couldn’t afford to make vaccines anymore and pay for the lawsuits.

I’m fully aware of the VICP’s history; my articles about it are on this blog. You say this like it’s a bad thing–vaccines are a public good. If litigation costs from rare side effects restrict the availability of a lifesaving product, it’s important to manage those costs. Only, of course, if the rights and health of patients are protected. And the VICP does a better job of that than regular court because it makes it easier for parents to get compensated.

Bear in mind that (a) the vaccine makers pay for all those awards through a required payment to the VIF and (b) parents can still sue vaccine makers if they want. Anti-vaxers often don’t believe that, because they get their information from documentaries instead of actual expertise, but you can see for yourself if you read cases like Holmes v Merck (where parents actually did sue the vaccine maker, and were allowed to do so).

I have no idea why you would ask for epidemiologists on this

Because epidemiologists are experts on detecting disease and patterns of disease in populations, including iatrogenic conditions. If you prefer we could look to autism experts, neurologists, immunologists–I’m not aware of any relevant specialty where the overwhelming majority don’t agree that vaccines are safe and effective.

I’m astounded that you find “160 relevant professionals” to be more significant than the thousands and thousands of immunologists, epidemiologists, neurologists, etc. who refuse to be taken in by these conspiracy theories and vaccinate their own children.

Moreover, you don’t have a list of “160 relevant professionals.” That list includes many people whose specialties aren’t listed. Of those who are, I see a radiologist, a chemist, and multiple osteopaths. How are these people experts in vaccines? Some are notorious cranks, like Joseph Mercola and Sherri Tenpenny, who actively make money off of anti-vaccine paranoia. Others are dead–how do we know whether their supposed “concerns about vaccines” wouldn’t have been relieved by the regular flow of high-quality research showing that vaccines are safe and effective?

You’re promoting propaganda. “160 relevant professionals” isn’t a list of relevant professionals at all, and if it was, why would 160 be a significant number? There are thousands of professionals in actual relevant fields. If this site, which is obviously desperate to add every name it possibly can and has no standards whatsoever for credibility or expertise, can only find 160 names to add, doesn’t that show how vanishingly few anti-vaxers there are among people with real knowledge about vaccines?

Look, guys, I’m getting out of here. I encourage anyone to see the film, or listen to the people who question these things for no benefit to themselves. Certainly, when it comes to conflicts of interest, there are billions of dollars at stake in this industry.

I am reminded of the other film that people are being asked to never see – Vaxxed just came out, and the CDC whistleblower, Michael Thompson is very real, which that filmais about, and he’s been subpoenaed by congress on the matter – see rep. Bill Posey, and the CDC has a history of fraud, and the CDC’s other guy – Poul Thorsen, leading similar studies is wanted by the law right now, and can’t be found.

I don’t have a problem with people looking at or reading any darned thing they want to. And I am out of here.

Also, which vaccine on the present American pediatric schedule is only available with thimerosal? Don’t mention influenza, because at least half are available in single dose versions with thimerosal. Also, do not mention Tripedia which was just one available DTaP that was removed from the market five years ago.

“The film stands as more worthy of an audience than anyone who simply takes one side.”

It is still a fraudumentary. It is just a series of unverified anecdotes, including the story of one of the test cases for the Autism Omnibus proceedings. Apparently the unverified anecdotes were not good enough even for the very lax evidence requirements, and it failed. And it failed spectacularly as noted by one of the Special Masters (which you would have read if you had clicked on the ScienceBasedMedicine review and actually read it:

This case, however, is not a close case. The overall weight of the evidence is overwhelmingly contrary to the petitioners’ causation theories. The result of this case would be the same even if I totally ignored the epidemiologic evidence. The result would be the same if I restricted my consideration to the evidence originally filed into the record of this King case, disregarding the additional “general causation” evidence imported from the Dwyer case. The petitioners’ evidence has been unpersuasive on many different points, concerning virtually all aspects of their causation theories, with each such deficiency having been discussed in detail above. The petitioners have failed to persuade me that there is validity to any of their general causation arguments, and have also failed to persuade me that there is any likelihood that Jordan’s thimerosal-containing vaccines contributed in any way to the causation of Jordan’s own autism. To the contrary, based upon all the evidence that I have reviewed, I find that it is extremely unlikely that Jordan’s autism was in any way causally connected to his thimerosal-containing vaccines.

In short, this is a case in which the evidence is so one-sided that any nuances in the interpretation of the causation case law would make no difference to the outcome of the case.

Here is a hint: the plural of anecdote is not data. By the way I gave you census data on measles morbidity in the USA last century: when are you going to tell me why measles cases plummeted 90% between 1960 and 1970?

“you can find over 160 relevant professionals”
What is that, like 0.0001% of all the people in all those professions worldwide in the last 30 years?

On the presumption that the 160 number is valid,
Are you suggesting that a 99.999% consensus on a scientific issue is not an overwhelmingly vast consensus?

Why exactly would you even post such a tiny dissenting number as an argument?

However, as you know perfectly well, Mark, scientific fact is not decided by vote.
It is decided by the best evidence.
So,
Please post the PubMed indexed publications from within the last 20 years (the publications themselves, not a blog about vaccine publications) that demonstrate that any vaccine Currently on the US schedule of pediatric vaccine recommendations is More dangerous than the illness it is meant to prevent.

And it may be useful to remember that the vast majority of physicians are not scientists.
Medical school (I suppose I can only speak about those in the US and the ones of the last 100 years that I know something about) are advanced vocational schools. They teach one how to do medicine. They do not necessarily teach how to do biological or epidemiological science.

You mean the actual verified evidence and not fiction? Are you now going to tell me the Confederate states won the American Civil War and that the Tooth Fairy really did bring you coins for your baby teeth?

“Here, for example, is something to question the history and efficacy of vaccines, since in the 20th Century, we see all disease, vaccinated or not, decline in the modern world (pre-vaccine) along with reduction in top disease vectors, such as sanitation and nutrition…”

You do not seem to understand the difference between mortality and morbidity. If you wish to see the actual decline of a disease, you should only show morbidity (rates of recorded cases). Mortality graphs only show the improvements in medical care, and in the case of that first graph for measles it would be the invention of antibiotics for secondary infections (measles reduces the immune system for years), and artificial ventilation for the very common symptom of pneumonia from measles (the first versions were the iron lungs that where developed for the polio outbreaks in the mid-20 century).

Sorry, but argument by docufiction still does not work. And the last link: another essay you do not understand. Followed by this classic: “Hundreds of doctors and scientists have raised concerns regarding vaccines, and they’re worthy of hearing.”

Sure, list those PubMed indexed studies by reputable qualified doctors and scientists that show any vaccine on the present American pediatric schedule causes more harm than the disease.

By “reputable” I mean someone who has not had their right to practice medicine legally stripped, nor is paid by certain groups trying to create “studies” for a legal suit (examples: SafeMinds and the Dwoskin Family Foundation). By “qualified” someone with the appropriate education and experience, so no lawyers, electrical engineers, journalists, finance professors, journalists, computer scientists, geologists, etc.

” I mean someone who has not had their right to practice medicine legally stripped”

You must be referring to Andrew Wakefield, and a study from 1998. Well, the GMC wrote up a lot of claims condemning that study, and then the punishments were rendered, and then it went before a British court which heard all of those claims, plus rebukings, and quashed the GMC claims made against that study, leaving the General Medical Council as the most questionable of the bunch (“the panel’s determination cannot stand”).

” The panel’s determination cannot stand. I therefore quash it. Miss Glynn, on the basis of sensible instructions, does not invite me to remit it to a fresh Fitness to Practice panel for redetermination. The end result is that the finding of serious professional misconduct and the sanction of erasure are both quashed. ”

When I wrote, I made reference to all diseases in the 20th Century, whether vaccinated or not, experiencing significant declines prior to vaccination. We can look at many diseases, such as polio, or yellow fever, or typhus, and to be sure, find that pre-vaccine declines in the US were not experienced around the world due to mitigation against other major disease vectors, such as with sanitation and nutrition.

But I have had enough of any attempt to have this exchange with you. Everyone forms their own opinion, and all I really wanted to do was encourage anyone to check out more on the topic for themselves.

The appellate ruling was not applicable to Wakefield, who was not charged with the same wrongdoing. For example, only Wakefield was found to have conducted unnecessary and improper medical procedures on children without regard for their suffering.

Moreover, Wakefield’s collaborator defended himself by essentially alleging that he had simply trusted Wakefield. Obviously “I trusted Wakefield” is not a defense that Wakefield himself could use.

I understand that you have been told that Wakefield should have been exonerated, and that you want to believe it. But what you want to believe doesn’t affect the facts. Please don’t spread misinformation merely because it’s comforting to you.

“When I wrote, I made reference to all diseases in the 20th Century, whether vaccinated or not, experiencing significant declines prior to vaccination. We can look at many diseases, such as polio, or yellow fever, or typhus, and to be sure, find that pre-vaccine declines in the US were not experienced around the world due to mitigation against other major disease vectors, such as with sanitation and nutrition.”

Your response to my question was finally approved. It must have been delayed because of the multiple links. Yet, you did not answer my question. You seemed to have ignored the rules. I specifically mentioned that you do not mention any other diseases, but decided you must.

What pre-vaccine declines of measles did you see in the US Census data? Please elaborate, because I see no decline in measles incidence before 1963, when the first American measles vaccine was approved.

“all I really wanted to do was encourage anyone to check out more on the topic for themselves.”

How do you recommend they do that?

Should they all go to college and get a Masters or PhD in a field relevant to vaccines?
Should they ask the country’s best experts on the topics to tell us that they do for their own family?
Should they read blogs from people with no education in a relevant field?
Should they read the musings of people who are admittedly out to sell you an alternative treatment?

What pre-vaccine declines in measles cases? Why do the numbers really start to fall a couple of years after the first vaccine was licensed? So what really caused the number of cases fall 90% between 1960 and 1970? What spectacular sanitation and nutrition breakthrough occured between 1962 and 1966 to cut the number of measles cases in half?

If you scan up and down this page, you’ll see a large number of people not only looking at science but citing specific scientific studies that you can examine for yourself. You may prefer to watch a propaganda film, but that does not bear on the plain fact that the actual science supports the safety and efficacy of vaccines. Just look beyond what you want to see and start reading all of the science everyone else here is already looking at.

Why isn’t the chicken pox vaccine routinely given with other vaccines in the UK? I didn’t even know there was a vaccine for chicken pox until my sister told me that my nieces were vaccinated (they live in Canada). Also, would it provide immunity against shingles in adulthood too?

It pains me to have to chime in here, but it really isn’t on the standard vaccination schedule and it does seem to be for the reasons Robin has given above. I didn’t actually realize it had been added back home until my kids managed to catch it over here, incubate it, then break out in rashes while visiting my folks in the States… I got a thinly-veiled accusation from GP who looked to be about 15 years old and who clearly mistook me for an anti-vaxxer, but it’s true, the UK government does not offer this vaccine aside from special cases.

I didn’t start this subtopic off, but I’ve answered just above with the appropriate citation (one of the NHS UK webpages). I’ve not done any comparisons myself, nor am I going to–the vaccine simply isn’t offered to immunocompetent children from healthy families, in the UK–and my kids have had chickenpox now (before I knew there was a vaccine) so there seems little point. I can repost the link if you like, but it’s literally 2-3 posts above (allowing for someone adding another reply before you see this).

Just for the record, this isn’t necessarily a stance I agree with, but it’s a moot point now; and it most assuredly is accurate to say that the UK government/healthcare system doesn’t think the Chickenpox Vaccine is beneficial enough to add to the standard schedule.

I read your link, and it really is not an appropriate citation (also it had no PubMed indexed references). NHS is just putting in a speculative comment that shingles in adults may go up, nothing about shingles in children from the vaccine (which is what Anonymous claimed).

The same page has a link for shingles vaccination for those in their 70s. So adults who are worried about shingles should just pay for their own shingles vaccine (hubby I and already did, and we are not yet sixty). Do not depend on sick children to “boost” your immunity to shingles.

I am sorry your kids had to go through chicken pox because the NHS does not have it on their list of vaccines they pay for. But that is the UK. Just think about how many kids got mumps because they waited so long to license a vaccine for that (about seventeen years after the USA). The reason I have heard why they wait so long is the “precautionary principle” used in making a decision, and it is a small country. About a hundred people died per year from chicken pox in the USA before the vaccine, but it has a much larger population than the UK where the death from chicken pox would be naturally much lower (like less than a dozen per year). So the reason is also driven by finances.

I remember when we were living in our first house (we moved in 1993) that a mom who was from Italy told me that her kid’s doctor mentioned there was a new chicken pox vaccine, but it was not yet available in the USA. He told her on her next trip to visit relatives in Italy that she should get her son the varicella vaccine that had been developed in Japan. She would have to pay for it, just like you would have to pay for it in the UK (where it is available, you just have to pay for it). I really really wish it had been available for our kids… they all got in 1994, and that included the six month old baby.

That baby is now twenty two years old, and because she had chicken pox before her first birthday, she has a much higher chance of getting shingles in her twenties. Especially in stressful situations. At the end of summer she is moving to another state to go to graduate school. I really hope she does not come down with shingles in the next few years.

You don’t need to tell me how to cite sources; I’m aware that Americans living in the US think that PubMed is the only valid source of data, but it is not. I’m a year away from finishing a degree in Applied Psychology (A-average, thus far, with 98% in my last statistics exam) and I quote many, many sources other than PubMed.

The original comment I replied to wasn’t asking for a peer-reviewed study, and one is not needed in every case: here, someone had made the observation that the UK government has made the decision not to vaccinate against chickenpox (and gave an example of the reason the UK government gives) and a citation was requested directly under that.

I promise, it is perfectly acceptable to cite an approved government website as a source of information regarding government policy (or at least, it is in the rest of the world; maybe the USA only accepts its own government’s data). For the record, the website my link goes to is a certified member of The Information Standard, a professional body dedicated to maintaining evidence-based health and care information, and you can request the evidence they’ve used (or log in and view the studies yourself, I think, if you have an Open Athens log-in, which is the online search engine for medicals students and professionals in the UK–though I can’t check that myself, I have seen a GP friend of mine log-in to Open Athens to read studies). I think there’s a form on the website itself, as well, where you can request the evidence used in making certain policy decisions.

I admit, I may have misread anonymous’ post (skimmed it, more likely, since I was actually replying to the post above, and THAT is the post to which my citation should be applied) and not seen that they specifically stated that it was children at a greater risk of developing shingles–but the fact still holds, the UK government’s standard line is that immunocompetent individuals do not require vaccination against chickenpox, and that introducing it would likely be detrimental to public health. And a certified government website is a reputable source to find information on government policy; which is all I’m concerned with, at this point, as my comment above clearly states I’ve no interest in researching the pros and cons of the varicella vaccine, and have not done so. Which is why, again, my particular comment would not involve PubMed (nor any other study-based) links… I’m commenting on government policy.

Additionally, whilst funding is always a concern for a service that is free at point-of-use, rather than one which varies depending on how much money a private citizen can throw at it, I rather think the onus is now on you. I would be grateful if you could provide a reputable source arguing that the UK government does believe that the chickenpox vaccine should be introduced, and isn’t doing so purely for financial considerations and/or the precautionary principle. I rather think “the reason I have heard…” etc is a statement that requires a citation. From whom did you “hear” this? What are their qualifications?

I do not require a PubMed source, if we’re having a discussion about healthcare policy in the UK. Any certified government site, peer-reviewed academic journal, etc, will do me.

PubMed indexed medical journals from around the world. That is just a side note, because your NHS web page still not say that children got shingles from the varicella vaccine, which was the claim.

I only ask for PubMed papers by reputable qualified researchers to avoid being bombarded by Youtube videos, news articles (like old undated articles from the Daily Mail) and random links to places like whale.to, Natural News, etc. I sincerely doubt those would be satisfactory references for anyone getting a degree in psychology. Who should already know that one cannot prove a negative.

I think we’re all aware that the link I posted was nothing like a link to Natural News, etc. If you are genuinely insisting that all reputable data in the entire world can be found on PubMed and nowhere else, you are being deliberately obtuse, and I’m sure I’m not the only one who’s noticed it.

I’m still waiting for the citation re: “The Precautionary Principle” (which isn’t related to my admittedly facetious request for you to prove a negative, but rather, the genuine side of that request, concerning where you obtained your information re: UK government public policy. Mine came from a UK government website which offers more specific information if requested, government leaflets, and a UK GP and UK Practice Nurse).

I was sarcastic in my previous comment, and it was wrong of me. I apologise. We will make no headway if it is your position that a government website is an unsuitable reference re: government policy, though… because, as I have stated in each comment, I’m neither interested in debating the efficacy of the chickenpox vaccine, nor the wisdom of the NHS’s policy on vaccinations–I was merely chiming in to give a greater awareness of UK healthcare policy, and I have done so.

Just for clarity, in the course of my degree I have quoted websites such as the BBC (re: the refugee crisis in Europe, this year) and as long as they were referenced appropriately, they were accepted as appropriate sources… I would be genuinely amazed to find I’d posted anything from Natural News, The Food Babe, Mercola, etc etc, unless it was for amusement and ridicule purposes. If you’ve seen me do so, please can you show me where?

Yes, but the site itself is American, run by an agency of the US government–so if your statement is that only PubMed articles are acceptable, you are in effect claiming that only the American government’s screening procedures (for weeding out bad data from good) are acceptable; you may as well say that my university log-in, which gives me access to various UK studies and journals that are not (or in many cases, not yet) on PubMed, is of no use, because if I can’t find it on PubMed, it is by definition substandard… even if the UK government, the EU, etc etc, have already screened it.

This is the sort of assertion that encourages citizens of other countries to find us insufferably arrogant.

On UK government policy? I doubt I’ll find any such references in a medical journal of any flavour…

ChrisMay 30, 2016 / 7:13 pm

You are right, that would be better. There should be a UK equivalent of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (with a bit different spelling). The USA version has their minutes archive of the past few years online. I know the UK has some archives online.

The varicella vaccine came out in 1995. I know this because all of my kids got in the fall of 1994, including the baby who just turned twenty one years old a couple of months ago..

So you must be very young, or singularly unlucky to get both chicken pox and shingles before turning twenty one years old! Perhaps your experience is just one reason why the second dose was added in 2007.

In the three largest outbreaks of 2014, which account for over a half of all cases this year, transmission occurred after introduction of measles into communities with pockets of persons who were unvaccinated because of philosophical or religious beliefs. Although high population immunity throughout the United States (through maintaining ≥90% MMR vaccine coverage among children aged 19–35 months and adolescents) prevents spread from most importations (7,8), coverage varies at the local level, and unvaccinated children tend to cluster geographically, increasing the risk for outbreaks (9).

So far something like 80% of the Disney cases are not vaccinated (this is about the same as other outbreaks). And they are about 5% of the population. So even if you knew nothing at all about the science, it would be pretty obvious which group is more responsible for spreading the measles.

Yes, you are creating a false comparison. Measles, mumps, pertussis, diphtheria and tetanus are not water borne diseases. All except tetanus are airborne.

A little boy recently died in Spain from diphtheria. Is that a third world country? There have been several deaths from SSPE (which is caused by measles infection) in Germany, and now a little boy is dying from it in California. Are either of those third world countries?

According to an infectious disease surveillance (2000), total measles cases were estimated to be from 180,000 to 210,000, and total deaths were estimated to be 88 [11,12]. Measles cases are most frequently observed among non-immunized children, particularly between 12 to 24 months.

You’re right, we are being lied to. But not in the way you think. I encourage you to watch this documentary trace amounts. I have been in the vaccine conversation for years now and even I learned quite a few new things from this film. It is well worth the watch.

Where did the film maker get his relevant scientific education? And why is he so concerned about something that was removed from pediatric vaccines over a decade ago? That seems to be a bit late. Really, what vaccine on the American pediatric schedule is only available with thimerosal?

“But not in the way you think”

Prove it. Provide the relevant verifiable documentation. That should be in the form of PubMed indexed studies by reputable qualified researchers.

And who in their right minds thinks a small scale documentary cancels out all of the studies by real scientists that show vaccines are safe, and much safer than getting the diseases?

I stumbled unfortunately onto this conversation and I’m so glad to see that you, Chris, have the time to refute false logic and blatant lies told by the anti-vaccination movement.

As as 3rd year medical student, I have already had to convince a mother of a child with sickle cell disease that her son was at much greater risk of Strep pneumo sepsis than even having a site reaction to the Pneumovax vaccine during my Pediatrics rotation. I’ve watched full-grown formerly healthy adults die in the ICU from H1N1 influenza. I treated a teenage patient with suspected mumps who screamed in pain due to his swollen salivary glands and constant searing pain in his swollen testicles. He developed pancreatitis and now takes pancreatic enzymes everyday due to the damage. I’ve only been in clinical practice 1 year.

For parents who don’t want to vaccinate their kids.

1) Keep your child away from other children as much as possible. I will not sign a clearance for recreational sports. I will not sign off on their school physical. I will not give approval for summer camps. I recommend home-schooling, avoidance of play-dates, and isolated property as well as keeping your child out of supermarkets, stores, movie theaters, nursing homes, doctor’s office waiting rooms, orthodontists’ offices, and hospitals to name a few places.

2) Understand that we don’t have a good understanding of management for some diseases that have vaccines. Yes, we have medications for the flu (so long as you come in within 24-36 hours) and chicken pox/shingles can normally be managed with antivirals. However, I have no idea how to manage a case of measles – we don’t learn how because we haven’t needed to for 30 years. We all had to read about adjunctive therapies for mumps at a specialized children’s hospital when we had our suspected case. We also had to call the CDC, keep the patient on airborne isolation, remove our coats, and wear respirators, gowns, and gloves to keep from potentially infecting other patients.

3) Don’t expect doctors to ever stop asking about vaccines. We’re a group of mostly Type A personalities who care much more about your child than about conclusions you have drawn based on celebrity gossip (Jenny McCarthy), retracted studies, opinions from blogs, and documentaries based on the previous 3 I have listed. The biggest struggle we all face on a personal level when a child becomes ill with a vaccinatable illness is wondering why we couldn’t convince that parent to vaccinate in the first place.

“Chris, have the time to refute false logic and blatant lies told by the anti-vaccination movement.”

Thank you, but you replied to a comment made almost a year ago. Not so much the time, but I have been doing it much longer.

Also, I was not aware varicella could be treated with anti-virals. My understanding is that anti-virals are specific to the virus. Though varicella is related to various herpes strains, so their may be one that can treat varicella. One fallout of the HIV/AIDS crisis in the 1980s.

Sadly, there is nothing for measles.

Good luck with your studies. My neighbor’s son is in medical school, and she does worry about his health.

Sorry cause i don’t speak propper english. I write down this message cause i’m really confused about all this matter, and honestly, how more i try to undertund and more information i read about it, more confused i get.

I’m not specially paranoic about how the world works but i’m aware innoff to know certenly that in our western system all it’s a matter of money, and the pharmaceutyc industry is one of the first economy markets of the whole world. I dont’ belive their goal is to keep people helathy but to get each time more reach, this is how the companies work.

That under my point of vew, it makes me doubt about the real independency that the investigators have when they do their studys, as many times are directly or indirectly sponsored by those companies. So my question in this point is, are they really free to make investigations searching from an open perspective for the real results about it?

Besides that, it seem’s to be professional doctors, I guess with the same credibility as you or any other who is pro vaccination, that defend oppostie positions about vaccination, positions that seem to be also sustented in to cientific research for example this woman: http://drsuzanne.net/dr-suzanne-humphries-vaccines-vaccination/.

Honestly, i thing that science is amazing, it allow us to explain and to know how many things work, but at the same time i feel we steel have a long path, constantly we descover trhough scientific research that things we had been doing for a long time, things that where sustented by science some years ago, all of a suden we realise that where tottally wrong. That it’s happening every day. so my point is, if there is really no doubt about the vaccination why there is many people (doctors) sayng the opposite?

I’m shure every body is tryng to do their best wither the one’s are pro or against vaccination, but you know, probably most of the people in this world are tryng their best, and look at the world we live, i don’t thing humanity is such a referent. That mean’s that even tryng our best we fail many times not cause we want but cause we are ignorants in many aspects and some times we expend more energy tryng to defense our personal points of vew about something than really tring to be open in understunding the thruth that is inside each other.

I think it’s really complex to understund the big picture about it, till know i found innoff information in both directions to write many books about it, and i steel not knowing certenly what to think about it.

“I’m not specially paranoic about how the world works but i’m aware innoff to know certenly that in our western system all it’s a matter of money, and the pharmaceutyc industry is one of the first economy markets of the whole world.”

At this time there is a child in Canada in the hospital with tetanus, and another small child in Spain very seriously sick with diphtheria. The Russian ambassador arranged to have very hard to get diphtheria anti-toxin delivered from Moscow. They had it because about twenty years ago they an epidemic with hundreds of thousands of cases, resulting in thousands of deaths from diphtheria:Diphtheria in the former Soviet Union: reemergence of a pandemic disease.

Also, recent outbreaks of measles about one in twelve needed hospital treatment, because one thing measles causes in one out of five cases is pneumonia.

Why is it better and cheaper to treat these diseases instead of preventing them?

I truly find it hard to believe that anyone would say that Whooping cough isn’t such a big deal for children. It is a terrifying, horrific disease to suffer, whatever your age. The name comes from the sound of the poor infant trying to catch their breath after a bout of coughing. My brother had it, and was barely able to breathe. When he could breathe he would cry, and who wouldn’t. Breathing is all but impossible, and the pain from almost constant coughing must be unbearable.
I pity any child who isn’t vaccinated from preventable diseases. I’ve had measles, mumps, rubella and chicken pox (as have my brother and sister). I remember how horrible they were for all of us in a time where vaccinations were not readily available.
I had my daughter vaccinated as soon as she was old enough to have them, and I would advise anyone to do the same for their children. There may be side effects, but they are nothing to the suffering the diseases themselves cause. Something you could never understand if you have never had those diseases yourself.

The thing about clinical studies is that they must be repeatable and verifiable. If they are not BOTH repeatable and verifiable, then their publication is revoked (or usually they are never published on any reputable medical publication). This is the fundamental fact of the scientific method.

My point is that people who refuse vaccination and cite articles from non-medical publications are probably referencing unscientific data. The amount of scientifically verified studies and repeated studies out there should be more than enough to convince any logical person to get vaccinated. But alas, there are too many illogical people in this world and THAT is the problem we are facing.

The article, and comments I’ve read so far, emphasizes that diseases that were often thought to be just a normal part of childhood, uncomfortable but not serious, can actually be fatal, and many deaths can be prevented by vaccinations. Absolutely, but it didn’t explain that people who survive these diseases can then develop encephalitis, which can also be fatal. I’ll leave an explanation of encephalitis to medical people here,but I had it, in the early 50s, when I was 4 years old, after I had mumps. I was in a coma for several weeks, had a very high fever, one side was paralyzed during the coma, and I wasn’t expected to live. If I hadn’t had mumps I wouldn’t have had encephalitis. In CAT scans and MRIs (taken for other conditions), my brain still shows the effects of the encephalitis. Parents who think their child should become infected to get a stronger immunity than from vaccinations make me cringe.

i stopped vaccines on a our children when It seemed that our 15 month old son had something wrong….lots of bruising on his calves…. But our very competent allopathic pediatrician didn’t think anything was wrong. I declined the 15 month and 18 month shots and just a month later he had Petiquia(sp? Small red blood blisters) all over his torso. The doctor got very serious, then, saying his spleen was enlarged and it was either mono or leukemia. Fortunately, after blood testing, it was mono. Babies are suppose to be healthy when given their shots… I believe if he had been given the normal battery of Immunizations he may not be the bright young man he is today due to the undiagnosed mono.

The one vaccine I do tell our children to have is the tetanus shot.

Our daughter while a nursing student said that she and another student were the only ones not immunized. She looked around her class and said she thought the two of them were the healthiest in her entire class. Both of them had to get all the vaccines….. However, I had her titers checked for some diseases like chicken pox which she had had, which reduced some of the shots she had to have.

Well it is nice to know that she was not a nursing student in my local university. All health sciences students there are required to be vaccinated. Just like all employees at the hospitals associated with the university. See: https://depts.washington.edu/chsweb/

I suspect this post was AstroTurf, but at the very least, the author is simply regurgitating what the mainstream media (which is bought and paid for by the Pharmaceutical industry, among others) is spouting about vaccines.
The “science” is not settled and never is. And it seems to me that most people don’t understand true science anymore.
If you believe “science” is already determined, and is merely about majority consensus, you are actually referring to religion.

If you believe a potential finding in scientific studies, or hypotheses presented by scientists are unquestionably true, you are actually talking beliefs.

If you believe in this concept of science above all else, and cannot consider criticism or permit this science to be challenged or questioned, then you are following dogma.

If you believe all people must follow this science without doubting or searching for more answers, you are demanding an act of faith.

If you believe that the amount of science you have at your hands right now is the ultimate knowledge, and that all people must be compelled through peer pressure or laws to follow this science, you are attempting to make our country a theocracy.

Theocracy is a form of government in which clergy (doctors) have sovereignty over a territory (medicine) and official policy is either governed by officials regarded as divinely guided, (from dogmatic science) or is pursuant to the doctrine of a particular religion or religious group (pharmaceutical company and lobbying groups).
What is real science? What does it mean to be pro-science? Who is supporting scientific exploration?

People who QUESTION current beliefs are pro-science.

People who want to EXPAND knowledge about our world are scientists.

People who FIGHT for ethical, empirical experiments are fighting for science.

People who DOUBT hypotheses and OFFER alternative ideas are encouraging scientific progress.

Those who question, those who want more investigation, those who want all aspects acknowledged, those who show caution about human rights violations or show concern for how our world might be hurt… Those people are the farthest from anti-science. So, who is actually anti-science?

No, this article isn’t astroturfing. That’s a very lazy critique to make. You could have disproven it in two seconds by reading my CV (linked at the top of the site). Or do you think that the Big Pharma conspiracy is so vast that they would invent a person with fake academic degrees and a university position?

“it seems to me that most people don’t understand true science anymore.” You mischaracterize science when you suggest that it never comes to a conclusive answer. In this case, hundreds and hundreds of independent studies have shown the same result. It’s about as clear a consensus as we ever get. However, I could outline evidence that if found would make me change my mind…could you? What evidence would cause you to change your mind on the subject of vaccines? If you can’t answer this question, then you aren’t thinking scientifically.

For two years since I made the istake of commenting on this post I’ve had replies finding their way into my inbox every few months and nothing has provoked me to reply until this drivel. “You are a dogmatic theocrat if you follow the path the vast bulk of scientific research tells you to take, whereas ignoring scientific data and acting based on superstition and the words of fraudsters, that’s the way a real scientist carries on.”

It’s the kind of reasoning you expect from evangelical christian fundamentalists. Like saying “Just because conventional scientific understanding of evolution is still, well, evolving, just because there have been the odd inconsistency and change of mind in the 200 years the theory’s been standing up to concerted assault, therefore throw the whole thing out and accept my alternative. Oh what’s that? Oh no, I haven’t got any evidence. I don’t need evidence because my argument is based on irrationality anyway. You need evidence.”
I’m not so much a scientist as a technician. I don’t really care about the theory. I care about what is going to work. I examine all available options and pick the best evidenced one. Yes, there are problems people like you pose to vaccination to which I personally don’t know the answer. But what have you got? As far as I can see you’ve got nothing. No large-scale, properly conducted surveys. No link at all between autism and MMR. Sorry, if you think the other argument has weaknesses, yours is a tissue of superstition, anecdotal evidence and straight up lies. I mean for Christ’s sake. The autism/MMR story was broken in the Daily Mail. That fact alone should be enough to tell you it’s bullshit.
Yeah – anti-vaxxers are very quick to suggest corporate malfeasance from the drug firms (ignoring the fact that that only makes sense in the US; in the UK, for example, our NHS is (or was, or should be) immune from corporate pressure of this kind); but if you want malfeasance, I would say the fact that your whole argument is based on the proven lies of a man who was being paid by lawyers to drum up lawsuits somewhat outclasses any conspiracy theory you can imply about the other side.
People who subject their ideas to rigorous and methodical testing are scientists. People who ignore mountains of solid evidence in favour of superstition and things other people made up or ideas that they just prefer, are idiots. Particularly if they’re betting the health of their children on it. Come back talking about being a scientist when you’ve got some evidence.

Is a bit of a lazy one to just chuck in without any evidence. I presume you’re talking about “big pharma” and their industrial practices. But erm, “traditional” aka unlicenced medicine is also produced in factories. “Traditional” Chinese medicines are produced in unlicenced Chinese factories. You literally have no idea “how our world might be hurt” by that stuff. Although most of the endangered species in the world, particularly large mammals, could probably give you some pointers.

I guess you said it yourself: “First of all, vaccines aren’t always 100% effective, so it is possible for a vaccinated child to still become infected if exposed to a disease. Worse, there are some people who can’t receive vaccinations, because they are immune deficient, or because they are allergic to some component.”

I came from Eastern Europe where still is an obligation to vaccinate your kids. Despite that lots of people are against as information about content of vaccine is hold in secret. Simply people are afraid of things that are not transparent as too many times we all been lied to and exposed to different poisons. Such as SOx in air. There is in UK alternative way of doing diagnosis for illnesses based on EM waves and other stuff, I am always for doing as much diagnostic as you can before you act or take any medication. My older son had SOx poisoning not from vaccines but from air we breath all the time, there are heavy metals in water that we drink and bath in, pesticides cannot be washed away you eat them, and before someone blames vaccine of poisoning think twice what amount you can get in vaccines. Antibiotics are harmful too, even tea can be very harmful if you do not prepare it in proper way. Education is answer, not fear. My older boy had immunity crash all immunoglobulins were either 0 or barely above except ImgE which is usually one active when we have allergies. He was vaccinated priory even when he had iron deficiency, after doing real research as I am scientist myself, and talk with many different doctors and professors, from nutrition and immunity up to how our space is functioning and frequencies and all alternatives I came to one conclusion which you can support or not. Vaccines are good for prevention as well if you are giving them to sick child they can be harmful. Fever is not only sign of serious illness that is why after episode with my son and returning his immunity back to normal with diet which included meat and vegies and fruits and all kind of things but no artificial supplements and crappy sweets, when I cooked every single meal and when he always was eating fresh and from the garden and meat that we produced or people we knew, in six months he came back to normal, he spent lots of time outside on sun without sun cream and he was sleeping a lot, so before you jump on vaccines check your kid health priory to vaccination, how much he or she sleeps and rests, how much and what they eat, when last time they got antibiotic as for example you need six weeks to clean up residues from the body before you vaccinate your child as combination of different remedies, even natural ones can make harm to your child. My boy is now 11, never sick, vaccinated with all vaccines that I was getting when I was a child, we do not vaccinate against flue as there are too many variations of it, but meningitis, pneumococcus, and etc we did, as well he had natural chickenpox as in Europe you do not have to vaccinate against them and his little brother did not got them even that they slept in same room. With little one we have slow vaccination as he had reactions and even that I am not against vaccination I check each and every single time his health and wait longer for next vaccine if he gets reaction. Simple rule follow your childe monitor be sure, check, maybe you think that it is just runny nose but could be something worse vaccines are good as they can be, and as everything artificial they are not perfect, but there is no natural immunity against polio, or diphtheria, think twice when you put them to sleep, what causes SIDS and no one screams to find its cause, what causes diabetes 1, today autism is everything but what about exposure to TV and magnetic fields since their birth, they get much more of that than poisons in vaccines, their brain waves are exposed to so many things and they are overwhelmed, there are many poisons we inhale and drink that with time just destroy our organism, yes be sure of producer of vaccine, ask and require to see the label and exp. period (yes in poor countries could happen to get expired one), negligence of doctors who say that sniffing is just nothing, that little caught is OK, no many doctors do not care about details as they do not have time, so dear parents that is your job, to report all sniffles and strange and odd things and post pone vaccine if child is exposed to other viruses and illnesses till their incubation period is over, more if you have history of anemia in family run blood test priory vaccination to be sure, check stuff, is it expensive? Yes. does it take time? Yes. Does it requires more education than you planned? Yes. But is it worth doing best for your child? Yes. Autism is not the only thing our kids are hit with, attention disorders of many kinds not caused by vaccines but by stile of living and diet. Think twice if you are against vaccine, you should be against TV, microwave, new light bulbs, phones and tablets, antibiotics and all remedies that are not food. You should be against cars and industry as pollution comes from them too, you should be against disposable diapers and all disposable stuff that contain blood and …. from babies and adults. You should be against all chemicals used in soaps and shampoos, and etc, but are you? Do you really, if you do not vaccinate your child, do you really keep all threats out? I wish we could but where is the line? Noise, air pollution, water pollution, land pollution, social habits and values are degraded where is the line and definition what is good enough for our child? I am vaccine pro and still I will doubt and check and question all that medicine says but till I am sure that they are wrong 100% I will rather believe in vaccine than believe that enough people will be “the stupid” ones to vaccinate theirs. We should act more on other things like reducing amount of artificial food given to kids and exposure to magnetic fields and bad social values. Love to all vaccinated or not we all share same planet.

The loudest mouthpiece for antivaccers is Jenny McCarthy, who is looking for answers as to why her child is autisitc. There is a high correlation between autisitc children and mothers who live in smoggy cities. Jenny McCarthy smokes. hmmmm….

Marsha M Webb there is nothing bad in looking for answers, problem rise when we do not like answer so look for correlation in between number of grannies in the park and frogs in the swamps, I am sure you would found one. Couse cannot be explained by statistics. Cause only can be explained by chemical and physical processes in organism that bring child to state that we today call autism. You are right, lack of actual research and post investigation, or better to call it forensic medicine can find lots of so called causal relations that are false. First, autism is state of brain or mental state, however one wants to call it, excluding influence of body on brain is silly, so I did not found and genetic study done among autistic kids and parents and non autistic ones, and with siblings to exclude genetic mutations or disturbance of development within uterus, second I did not found study that questions mothers diet during pregnancy and autism, I did not found study on environmental pollution in area where autism is spread, it is all about vaccines and I want to know what is cause of autism and why it is not only happening to new born but can be developed latter. I would be grateful is someone points out MRI scans and EGG analyses of autistic kids and their non autistic siblings and control group. What were the habits of those kids, number of hours in front of TV, number of hours sleeping, amount of water drinking etc. I wish to know everything and to dig deep, why beside autism we have kids hit by depression when they are four. Why we have lethargic kids and do not use explanation teenagers 🙂 You made a good point and there are some good minds here, can anyone point out actual study about cause of autism and mental illnesses within kids? Thank you!

I get so frustrated with the “anti_vaxer” statement. It’s a real them and us situation. Those that are pro vaccines are generally argued from a scientific standpoint and despise anybody that dare question or have doubts on the subject.
Is this not the same argument that most scientific community give to religion. Did the scientific community not head down the path of science to question and explore?

I am an atheist, fairly well educated (real school not Facebook) and very exposed to risk so not throwing religion, ignorance or armchair safety into this just the confusion on whether I am allowed to question vaccines based on what I have learnt.

I am a wearer of the “anti-vaxer” label. This means that I have made a judgment call on experience gained through personal exposure to vaccines. I have 4 children. I have had the two oldest children vaccinated. This at the time was when multiple vaccines were being bundled together in a sexy little cocktail and put into my children without question.

My third child was a chatty boy and always happy and smiling. Before he was 1 he had a vaccine (not going to mention which one as it is beside the point). He screamed during the vaccine (which is normal) then proceeded to scream for hours after. The site of the injection became swollen. After a few hours his thigh was twice the size as normal and he had an angry red band around his leg. This as a parent does not register as normal. From that moment on he lost his joyful manner. For 48 hours he was quiet. Very quiet. Normally responsive but the seemed to lose something. I would suggest in my “anti-vaxer” ignorance that this may either be a coincidence or a very bad reaction to whatever was introduced into his body.

He is now 5 years old and is not autistic but is certainly slow in his speech. This could well be his normal path for development. However, his body reacted to the vaccine. Since then we have tried to get vaccines in single doses of the diseases we feel as parents offer the greatest risk. Risk we have deemed high due to our own research. Not Harvard level education but by gaining enough information to make an informed decision. Which I am sure I am still allowed to do. Single vaccines are no longer an option. Its an all or nothing situation.

I now have a baby girl We are not going to vaccinate her. I am still trying to get single vaccines for the diseases we feel are a risk. But this is not possible.

I agree that vaccines for my 2 older children had no effect on them post vaccine. However, as a parent I am now not prepared to risk potentially damaging my children further by allowing vaccines to be introduced into the body.

This may be a good or bad decision. Time will tell. However, do not play down the risk of vaccines. If the odds are 1 in a million and its your child. That 1 means a hell of a lot. I have yet to read a balanced for and against article that shows the detail you have laid down but with a good understanding of what the side affects and risk can be.

Please don’t misunderstand me. It was an interesting read. Just as usual aggressive and shouty (not a real word I know). This is the sort of read that the anti-vaxers get all wound up about. I hate being told off for grown up informed decisions. However, your statistics and detail were good.

Dear Dave, as scientist am not at all against religion, as when there was no way to write experience down people were telling the stories and gathered experience into beliefs. As most of things today we have to doubt stories as many people lie. I posted up my experience, we had luck and got most of vaccines separated. I am in fear every time, I do not sleep I worry as we need to vaccinate our little guy with two more till he is done with his schedule. Each and every time since he is born when I see doctors they ask will I vaccinate him like that is thing that makes the decide will they help or not. I am angry about that, I am angry that I have to explain every single time why I do delay vaccines. I am pro but I want to ask and I want answers, and still I understand your fear. I cannot tell you do this or that, you are parent like me you took responsibility over your decision. Unfortunately there is no safety net. If we fall we will fall hard in any of the cases. Maybe your boy would be slow anyway maybe not, you cannot know that, and as a parent you cannot gamble you have real reason to put that in medical records and require answers why he reacted the way he did. I did not got mine from pediatrician, I work at University and I got some possible answers from Professors who only again can assume as there is no research done, real one. Organism are fragile balance of chemical reactions, and doctors treat all of us the same but we are not the same each organism is unique combination. At least as pro to anti ( smile to labels) you did the best you could and do not doubt yourself no one will take over your problem with your kids. Not even anti community they will just use you as example but will not offer solution or answers. Just keep digging, trying, kick out sweets and experiment with actual diets, try lots of hugs and holding and I hope your boy will just move forward. While researching for my boy I dig out thing about amino acids and their importance, and B 12 and B1 for neural signals. Your boy is unique try to figure out on what he reacts the best. As far about “the war” there are no winners, we all rely on beliefs at the end of the day as there is not enough of information.

Thank you for your balanced comments. An unexpected pleasure when I logged on this morning.

I agree with all your points and thank you for sharing your experience. I do see the value in vaccines and wish there was a choice when it came to how they are delivered. Certainly I cannot risk giving the same vaccines again to my youngest boy as this would be like hitting him with the same stick.

In England we tried to discuss his reaction with a doctor but it was a very dismissive conversation. We are also told that we are not able to get single vaccines. I have offered to pay for all vaccines privately but still nothing.

Like you I will continue to look for answers and a solution. As the thought of the children becoming sick from one of the nasty ones concerns both my wife and I. A more balanced dialogue from the medical profession would also be nice. I also think allowing balanced and open dialogue in the community would be a huge benefit.

“A more balanced dialogue from the medical profession would also be nice. I also think allowing balanced and open dialogue in the community would be a huge benefit.”

You’ve commented several times asking for a “balanced” conversation. What is it about the discussion that you think is unbalanced?

Assume, for the sake of argument, that the epidemiologists and immunologists and neurologists are correct: the science overwhelmingly shows (both in terms of the number of studies and in terms of the best quality studies) that vaccines don’t cause autism. Should we carve out room for the anti-vax perspective anyway, in the name of balance, or just acknowledge what the epidemiologists and immunologists and neurologists say?

In other words, you seem to be asking for a “balanced” conversation in exactly the same way that creationists ask for it: teach the controversy, to protect beliefs that are not supported by serious scientific research.

“He is now 5 years old and is not autistic but is certainly slow in his speech. This could well be his normal path for development.”

Or not. If there is a concern, you should have him evaluated by a speech/language pathologist. My younger had language issues, which may have been due to being the younger brother of a non-verbal preschooler. The younger boy’s issues were cleared up with a year of speech/language therapy just before he started kindergarten. He eventually graduated with a degree in math, has a very good job and is moving in with his girlfriend this week.

The older boy does speak, he required ten years of therapy — it is still not quite normal. We are working to get him supported employment and living. Also, he is old enough to have missed out on the some of the new “sexy little cocktail” vaccines, instead he got a couple of the actual diseases. One caused seizures that sent him to the hospital.

There are many many types of speech/language issues. Do not fall into the “wait and see” trap, something I have seen happen many times. One mom blew me off when I noticed her toddler was not really speaking — a couple of years later I saw her bringing that boy in to see my oldest son’s speech therapist.

By the way, please thank your responsible neighbors who maintain your community’s immunity to several infectious diseases. They are protecting your family with vaccines. Though that is a very imperfect system, since families like yourself tend to gather together. If you don’t like the odds of “one in a million”, well you may not care for the increasing odds of getting pertussis, measles and mumps that are actively popping up in several areas.

Chris, even that you do have good points you are sometimes harsh to people who actually had experience with reactions after vaccinations. First those experiences should be gathered and evaluated not dismissed as irrelevant. Second, none of producers of vaccines cannot guaranty that vaccine will not trigger something dormant, there is always threshold in organism and maybe that last shot is over that threshold. MAYBE! Do not attack do not require ProMed as even scientific articles today do not necessary need to be true. Data are and can be faked from both sides. Real research costs and requires actual children to be involved. That means that parents should allow to some doctors to take blood samples, do genetic analyses for good cause of finding why all this happens. Hmm, with today community find enough people who will trust to the system and allow data gathering, not just in US, US is not whole world, did anyone compared how many kids around the world have autism after vaccination? Does any doctor has info available for each shot given its number date and producer and label with the name of the child? Does any pro or anti group has actual data to rely decision on? How many days after vaccine first symptoms developed. Which doctor supported findings and why? FDA put on list of possible after effects autism not because they have facts but because they are not sure, it is legal move not scientific based one. So science is based both on experience and proofs, forensic analyses and repeated cases, and I am sure you would not give vaccine to a child expecting to cause autism. So, we all need to admit that for God sake we hit the wall when too much data are same as no data. Simple what you can do now is to take analyses on kids who already developed autism but to what to compare when yo do not have data how was before autism showed. Just be easier to the parents who did vaccinations and had bad experience as there are those who gone through that. And we all need to sleep with our decision but you in case that our child is one in the million would not be hurt, as that child is just corrateral damage. It is hard to apply policy that each child matters in case of vaccination as there will be those who will have bad reactions. Yes we live for greater good, and for that we want to be able that producers take over responsibility over product, that I do not need to sign that I take over responsibility for consequences in case of bad reaction on vaccine. You warned me great, so why that system does not take over responsibility for those one in a million? Because statistics is just expression and in case of US you would only have 300 kids with some side effects, but number is greater so it is not 1 in million. Yes for Vaccines, No for how they are implemented. If we have to get them fine, but than for all kids harmed by them find care and solution, and comfort to families who lost their little ones. Can you? Can you find empathy for that 1 in a million and not just erase them with statement that all is for greater good. Give answers why immune system crashes after vaccination and how to prevent that, why and how to know will child develop actual disease against which he is vaccinated, how to act when they stay out of the cocktail from one producer and they change within months from cocktail of five to cocktail of six. Can you explain to people which virus uses our iron and can cause anemia? Can you put that on little letters and explain to parents when their child crashes instead to yell on them and say that they should be lucky and grateful for their neighbours? It is not them and us, we all are the humans and we all are in mess. Give answers on actual questions, why sleep pattern is influences by diet and medication and how to know that our child is one that will have problem, when it is from outside as perfect as all the others.

Because of that epidemic Russia had diphtheria anti-toxin to send to Spain last year. Unfortunately that little six year old boy still died. Remember if you are going to discuss some “one in a million” as being to much risk, then you need to also include the much greater risk of the disease. Diphtheria has a death rate of about one in ten. Measles causes encephalitis in about one in a thousand cases, and pneumonia in about one in five cases. I am not making up these numbers. If you don’t believe me, just contact your country’s national public health agency since the CDC only operates inside the borders of one American country.

Also, I realize that English is not your first language, but it would be extremely helpful if you used paragraphs. Your wall of text is very hard to read, just separate out the individual points by hitting the “enter” key on your keyboard.

Until your last paragraph I agree with you. I am a responsible parent and we are already having an assessment for our son’s speech. I do accept that this is his normal pattern. However, you seem to have skimmed over the live reaction and actual symptoms to the injection.

I have 4 children but did have another child that was severely disabled with Agenesis of the corpus callosum which (long story short) left him unable to receive vaccines. This was a congenital defect so I am not blaming vaccines. This was many years ago. So the concern of relying on others being vaccinated was high on the agenda.

What I take offence to is “since families like yourself tend to gather together “. You lost all credibility with that one statement.

My family live in England and I work in Myanmar. This is a hot and emotional topic where both sides are unable to discuss openly their views and have a balanced discussion. So unless you know more about my neighborhood than I do. Please retract the stereotypical statement.

“What I take offence to is “since families like yourself tend to gather together “. You lost all credibility with that one statement.”

I am sorry that offended you, but that is a pattern. There was a recent report of a measles case in a school in California with lots of unvaccinated children. Many times it is in church groups, private schools, homeschooling groups and parents with similar values who congregate together. I only mentioned it because “hiding in the herd” is an imperfect solution.

There are studies about that issue. I will list a few, but here is a pertinent paragraph from the first on the list:

Although overall vaccine coverage generally remains high in the United States, our review shows both higher prevalence and more intensive geographic clustering of NMEs over time. Clustering is particularly associated with disease outbreaks because herd immunity is compromised in areas with higher proportions of undervaccinated children.60 Clustering of exemptions can result from both selection effects—like-minded people tend to live near and socialize with each other—and social influence or diffusion effects, through which parents learn about social norms and about variations in the implementation of state and school immunization requirements and in provider responses to requests for exemptions.33 Further research should disentangle these effects to better inform interventions to preserve herd immunity at the local level.

I have a couple of comments. First, being right is NOT about who can scream loudest and longest. it’s about facts. Second, all one has to do to see evidence of vaccines being a positive in society is look at the numbers who have died of smallpox or been crippled by polio. in the late 40s and early 50s, 35000 people in theUS were diagnosed with polio. The Salk vaccine was released in 55. By 1965, only 61 cases were reported. Mumps and chickenpox, I had them and survived. My older kids had chicken pox. My younger one did not. He had the vaccine. So have my grandkids. ANYTHING i can do to keep my kids from suffering through “childhood diseases” is worth the risks involved. Measles? Rubella? Whooping cough? Tetanus? The numbers of all of these have decreased since the vaccines were introduced.

For the sake of argument, ASSUME that one child out of thousands does become autistic after vaccines. Even assume that the vaccine caused the autism. It would suck if that were my child and i had to deal with the repercussions, but the reality is, my child is still safer because of the vaccine. without it, he would be at risk of mumps/measles/tetanus/whooping cough/polio/smallpox and so would every single person with whom he would come in contact.

I don’t want my children or my grandchildren to be exposed to anyone who has not been vaccinated. That is not a risk I am willing to knowingly take. Parents who choose NOT to have their children vaccinated knowingly put them in harms way by sending them to public schools, allowing them to shop at the mall, sending them to day care. Its neglect to send them out without the proper protection.

FYI: my info came from the CDC. yes it’s a government agency and if you’re conspiracy theorists, you’re not going to believe anything I say anyway.

I’m gonna comment about this and leave it is slight fact and the rest to be opinion. I’m no scientist, I may have a strong love for it, but I don’t have the know how to provide facts about vaccines and diseases. However, I’m a 23 year old from England, and born in 1992, well before any of this anti-vaccine crap came about. I’m 100% grateful that I was vaccinated, as I am still alive today and I don’t have Autism. In fact I have no problems regarding physical or mental health. I didn’t get mortally sick as a child, although I had chicken pox twice as the first bout wasn’t strong enough.

I don’t want to repeat the original comment from the Pediatrician, but he makes a very good point. What happens when your baby/child gets Whooping cough? What will you do then? What happens if that child (unfortunately) dies from Whooping cough? Who will you blame? The doctors because they didn’t do enough? Or the vaccine that you refused? What about the physician that told you to get the child vaccinated? The problem is that you can’t blame anybody else, you’ll only be able to hold yourself responsible because you listened to those that shunned vaccines instead of getting 100% facts from doctors and physicians.

Please please please, get your child vaccinated from some of the nastiest viruses out there that can and will kill the light of your life. It’s not just the child that it affects if something should happen to them. What about you? Your family? The blame will eventually be led to the person who said ‘no’. Even if you do get the child vaccinated and some side effects happen, the chances are is that it’ll be pure coincidence as there hasn’t been a single link found to prove vaccines cause problems in later life.

“Following one such abortion, the fetus was sent to Plotkin at the laboratory he had devoted to rubella research. Testing the kidney of the fetus, Plotkin found and isolated the rubella virus. Separately, Leonard Hayflick (also working at the Wistar Institute at that time) developed a cell strain using lung cells from an aborted fetus. Many viruses, including rubella, grew well in the resulting cell strain, and it proved to be free of contaminants. The strain was eventually called WI-38. ”

I would be very interested if you could identify even a single example of a person who does not agree that vaccines have side effects.

Your position seems common among pseudomedical practitioners like chiropractors: assume that there must be two sides and define a middle ground that supports your otherwise unfounded fear of medical science.

In fact, the research is unambiguous: vaccines do have side effects, and they are so rare that they do not present a rational basis for modifying the well-supported vaccination schedule.

Rejecting the actual research that’s been done in favor of a self-serving and unsupported rhetorical strategy that only spreads unwarranted fear is not a “productive dialogue.” A productive dialogue about scientific issues starts with science. It discusses science. It is settled by science.

But I suppose that if people trusted science, chiropractors would be out of a job.

not just here but in most debates people set sides, which is wrong. We have to distinguish that vaccine as idea and concept are good, but each producer has to be responsible for the product. And right now that is not the case.

Child is not thing and still by law you have to give them vaccines or they cannot go to school, I have sense we been blackmailed. No one is responsible in case of side effects and still you are not allowed to question and check labels and write down numbers. Even if you report something it is not taken into consideration.

Trust is broken as YES there is huge profit and those who generate it YES people are treated as sacrifice it is issue who has right to say who can be sacrificed for greater good. And on the other side what is worse thousands of mentally disabled people instead of polio or something else. As well trust is totally lost that someone will not release disease just to prove that we need vaccine.

Some people lie, some people kill, some people do everything for profit. Some people come to the power and make rules that no one else can come to the power.

It is like gun control, you have right to have gun but right of the people to live in gun free environment is not considered.

It is not easy to set benchmarks. What is acceptable damage to a child considering greater good. Kill 5000 to protect 5 million, is that good number for you?

Problem is if your child is one of 5000 would you still believe that is good or you will lose your faith?

Science says EVERYTHING artificial has side effects, science DOES NOT know how each and every organism functions.

We all are different and yet treated the same.

It is HOW vaccines are treated not that they are not needed. Yes they are, like antibiotics or intervention in utero but where is the line?

Are we all aware that actual testing would include actual people? Sorry to mention but Hitler was using people to test medicine and no one thinks that is OK. Who would take a risk to get untested drug for greater good?

Everything we do has both sides, just can we agree that someone has to take responsibility over those who are harmed in name of protecting everybody?

When we say vaccines are all needed? OK polio, diphtheria, tetanus, rubella but why some like HPV or HEPATITIS B, or sexual transmitted diseases to give to babies?! Hepatitis A, OK everyone can have contact with it . As well each country is different and in some European countries vaccination is not obligatory.

Example, meningitis vaccine was introduced for generation 2006 in Eastern Europe, and it was obligatory for babies born in 2006, but for babies and kids born priory was not, was on voluntary base and you could buy it in pharmacy.

So, I do not understand that all kids priory 2006 were not vaccinated and still there was no more outbreaks than anywhere else. And suddenly if you are born in 2006 you would die if you do not get it? What with kids who are vaccinated latter why it is necessary to give vaccines to toddlers? Who have small body weight and less capacity to fight with all inputs fro outside.

What is difference if we vaccinate in 2 months and in 6 years? (For diseases that child is not exposed in any either way but direct contact or sexual activity?)

Is there alternative way of programming vaccination schedule instead of attacking one day old baby?

They are strictly against antibiotics and vitamins to be given to babies but vaccines are OK in large concentrations and all together?

Just asking and seeking for answers.

I am not against I am for explanation and information and label of each vaccine stick into health card or written into computer, and not just scribbled.

“When we say vaccines are all needed? OK polio, diphtheria, tetanus, rubella but why some like HPV or HEPATITIS B, or sexual transmitted diseases to give to babies?”

The HPV is only given after age ten years, way past the baby stage. It is given that young because very young teenagers have been known to engage in sex. This is not something you can pretend does not happen. Then there are horrible examples the child who was sexually abused being reported in our local news.

“Child is not thing and still by law you have to give them vaccines or they cannot go to school, I have sense we been blackmailed. No one is responsible in case of side effects and still you are not allowed to question and check labels and write down numbers. Even if you report something it is not taken into consideration.”

I understand how unfair mandatory vaccinations can seem especially if you are unsure of posible side effects. But there would be exceptions allowed if your child is medically unable to receive them. You can speak to your GP about testing for any allergies etc that your child may have to the vaccine. Most other side effects are minor and can be expected from any drug. From my understanding most major issues that occur are predisposed conditions that are posibly triggered by the vaccine, unfortunately these are hard to prove and its posible that many other things could have triggered it a moment later if not the vaccine (eg. Read on this forum; Vaccine causes high fever, triggers Autism. But she may have got the flu the next day and triggered it anyway).

I realise you are worried about your child and the posible risks and i know its scary but if you do the research to make sure they are medically fit for them but still choose not to vaccinate (i do believe you should have the right to choose) then you should not be allowed to take your children anywhere in public around other children and parents who do not know you or do not know they are not vaccinated. You are now potentially putting many other childrens lives at risk. You do not have the right to knowingly risk potentially exposing someone elses child, who is medically unprotected, to a deadly disease without their parents knowledge and allowing a choice on the risks as u did. Your child may not be sick but they may be a carrier.

Speak to your GP or several, research ingredients etc and make the most informed discision you can. I know its a lot of work and its confusing but no one ever said parenting was easy 🙂

“Are we all aware that actual testing would include actual people? Sorry to mention but Hitler was using people to test medicine and no one thinks that is OK. Who would take a risk to get untested drug for greater good?”

All medicines go through extensive human testing before being released to the public. There would be thousands, maybe millions of people currently participating in various trials all over the world. Some people are paid for their services, some may not be, and some are participating because they have a relevant illness where current drugs may not be working.

“It is not easy to set benchmarks. What is acceptable damage to a child considering greater good. Kill 5000 to protect 5 million, is that good number for you?”

“Problem is if your child is one of 5000 would you still believe that is good or you will lose your faith?”

I don’t think that benchmark you mentioned is relevant. In the end you make the decision to vaccinate or not and either way, you have to accept the consequences.

If informed decisions are made and relevant precautions are taken then no child is “killed”, as with almost everything in life, only the potential for accidental death from unforseeable circumstances.

Of course you would be shattered and question the vaccine if it was your child. But if it was mine in the end I would still vaccinate again. This is part of one topic that amazes me in the debate. The amount of fear, overanalyzing and undue mistrust created by vaccines is just plain crazy in my view. I understand the worry for your child and you want to understand the risks involved but compared to almost every other thing you and your child do everyday the risk involved here is miniscule. You want to know every posible bit of information on the vaccine and yet do you do that for anything else. Your child is trying new foods everyday with just as much potenial of killing as the vaccine. It could be poisoned or maybe allergic and not know. Any food or drugs or even beauty product etc could potentially be deadly. The only way you could make the same decision as an anti vaxxer and not accept any risk in this circumstance is to grow all your own organic food (great work if you do) nothing can be store bought as u just cant be sure what you are getting. Its also amusing that when u leave the house everyday you are trusting posibly thousands of people you dont know to drive safely and not kill you everyday (and being on the road would be at least 1000 times more deadly and likely btw) yet all of a sudden you cant trust the one person you have always trusted with your life… your GP. Just some comparisons lol.

Oh and Anna that last paragraph I was generalising everyone not specifically you.

I am so sorry if my response is not written very well. Responding on my phone which is difficult enough but just realized i wrote a lot if it as if i was texting. Sorry!!!

Thank you! I am just a day away from vaccination and sometimes I wish I just know nothing. My little one is premature baby and from first day they said that he can develop epilepsy or some other mental disorder due to things on births and not to go in details.

Many things I just left to faith, than I met other mothers, organic growing up and this and that, changed countries and systems and rules. I am tired. I talked to his doctors, and neurologist, a great man who never yelled or was sarcastic if I ask stupid questions even that I am very well educated. When it is about my kids I am just overwhelmed and I do not want to do something to cause them harm.

I do vaccinate him, first most of my fears I in me, I talk here as I need to hear people like you. You did not judge me you gave your opinion and I appreciate it.

Why I am scared? Because I know your love ones can die in 3 months from being healthy to getting sick. Because when I hold my older unconscious and waiting for results I could not not to ask myself was there something to prevent that.

Those were moments and months and that passed. When he has hard time focusing or remembering something I wonder.

Do not take me wrong, I understand importance, but does not make it easier especially when you are under pressure and judged.

As I do vaccinate but little one is not capable to follow mandatory schedule and still I have been judge from both sides from parents who are pro and from those who are anti. Gush, can someone just understand that for me my child is not 1 in a million, is not far away problem. It is my baby, and on the end I will hide all my fears, take him to the doctor and hold him and just move on hopping that he will be able to have normal happy life as all parents want to their kids.

And I do check all as much as I can, for older one I had to prepare special meals to return him immune system, I moved to village to be able to have my food production. I know that sometimes I stop believing in anything.

You know people expect that everyone have attitude. I do not have attitude against or pro. I read papers, last night got lots of judgment but people are not aware that here are not just people from USA. That in my country I did not see my baby priory the first vaccine, I was not able even to be informed what he will get, who is producer or what vaccine is for. It is expected of you just to know or accept everything without asking, without questioning, without wondering is there other way.

Do I feel free? Vaccines are just one of the things, more you think more you see that we do have to work for better of society, no one can do just whatever they want. And we have to make compromises between science, beliefs and other approaches in life. Nothing is black or white.

I just ask for more understanding, less judgment, more open discussion not attacks. As, in great picture all people who are harmed, are sacrifice for survival of whole humanity, but those who do live have to know that for people affected life sometimes do stop, and you do become selfish, and than you need lots of energy to accept that you are one of those, and hope that it will mean something.

For every parent faced with transplantation they know that other child had to die.

We never must forget that being human is not just managing physical but our emotions are as well involved deeply in our judgment.

Yes, Cautela, I will go tomorrow, do blood tests, get vaccine and move on, with hope that this one will not be as last one. That is for us two weeks of monitoring, dealing with jumps of fever and keeping him alert and active. For me that is sleeping beside him, cleaning his nose to be able to breathe, when he starts vomiting from all that runs down to be there, Is it easy to be parent, no, I never expected easy. And I still think I am mild case, eventually they will grow up, and develop. But for some people those nights are forever. And all pro and anti have to realize, all kids matter, and we have as society to stop judging and start realizing that months I spent in care for my child I was not able to do some other things, to provide what I could if my kids did not react as they did.

Again, my older one recovered. His immunity is back. He is growing and well maybe he is slow on some things but he is good person, and people do not notice that he cannot remember well as he has other things he is great at.

So, thank you for giving me opinion that I do not harm my kids on purpose, as I heard so many times, or that because I delay I am harming other kids.

I am just mother who wants to live to see her kids big and grown up and healthy.

World is far away from perfect but struggles of people are real. And seeing kids who are taking drugs, refuse to educate themselves, party all the time, drive like crazy endangering other people, seeing people who would do anything for money, alone in the dark I do wonder, for who society is expecting from me to accept possibility of losing my child. For people that will kill, and torture others, for people who would do frauds and manipulate with millions.

I know, I do that for all good kids, and people. For all talented and great ones, for all that are just like me.

And than I am many times in minority, and I again start wondering.

Vaccination is far more bigger issue than science behind it. In times when people feel that everything is out of their control they look for things that they can decide about.

Crucial things where human can feel that his/her life does matter.

Again, I am no ones enemy, I do not put in harm other people kids, I live with my fears and doubts, but I had to express them somewhere. And finally I will just keep doing daily routines.

I think what we forget is that vaccines do nothing more than arm the immune system to rarer and more virulent pathogens. Every minute of everyday from prior to birth to death the immune system is controlling a multitude of pathogens. There are about 10 bacteria in your body for every cell and an untold number of viruses, and the immune system is continuously riding herd on all of them. If you think this isn’t the case, go to your history books and see what AIDS did in the 1980’s, visit a bone marrow transplant ward, or people undergoing heavy duty chemo/radiation therapy, all of which severely compromise the immune system.

The attenuated viruses, killed viruses, and now coat proteins that we use for immunizations add little to the load of the immune system. The reactions that one sees are signs of a properly functioning immune system, reacting to a harmless pathogen-but learning what to do if a the real thing comes along.

Actually in reality once they managed to contain major outbreaks, it only required vaccination of those actually in danger of being infected. This was known as a “ring containment.” Just surround the infected person with a “ring” of those who have been vaccinated to reduce the spread of the virus.

Of course, you do need to remember the vaccine was in use for well over a hundred years before this was a viable option. And since the virus was effectively eliminated from circulation between forty and fifty years ago, how many of those who survived the actual disease are still alive?

By the way, my last smallpox vaccine was given in 1974. This was past the year it was routinely given in the USA. I got it because I was an Army brat living overseas.

First, I am not anti-vaccine. Polio, smallpox, whooping cough sickness and diseases definitely. For me, flu shots…. I am active duty and have to get it. My wife, of 5 years has never had a flu vaccine. She has gotten the flu, but every time her symptoms are less than mine and she gets over it quicker. So how is the vaccine helping me…. And this is every single time…. And we have lived in regions where the flu is much more prevalent. I believe that there is a middle between ‘modern’ science and old world medicine. There are some medical procedures that are redundant and pointless, for example; putting erythromycin on the eyes of new borns so they don’t get syphillis or Chlamydia, redundant if the mother has no history of STD’s.

I dont understand how people can still disagree with proven science? If you want to put your child/ren in danger, thats your decision but dont let them near any other child, no school, no kindergarten… dont let them leave the house. Its not fair for the children out there who’s parents were smart enough to vaccinate there child to have your little disease time bomb running around.

If you are too thick to read about it and underatand, go on youtube and search “penn and teller on vaccinations”

Yes i know they are a magic duo but its just a nice simple video that might get through that thick head of yours and visually represent the effects of vaccinated vs non vaccinated children.

Vaccines have been rigorously tested and shown not to cause autism. Can the focus shift into researching other possible causes such as glyphostate or other man made environmental factors that take time to come to light? Throughout the industrial era there have been many times we have inadvertently poisoned ourselves with sometimes strange and bizarre health results. For example PCB’s, mercury, lead, Pb3O4, CuHAsO3, HgS all come to mind now banned for several good reasons.

I’m always interested in how people decide what to pay attention to, and what to discount/ignore, how people go about deciding what to believe is a fascination of mine.

Let me ask you this: if someone asked you about a large health-related process (like chiropractic or homeopathy or naturopathy) but one about which neither of you knew anything, how would you suggest that person go about deciding it’s effectiveness and safety?
I’m not asking what information you would share, but what sort of decision-making process you would recommend.

Regarding your question at the top of the page – which i am SO FAR FROM, lol – my 2 cents. Or 4 – whatever.

This doctor has seen death from diseases. Surprise. He’s seen a lot of it in other countries, but we have an industry – an industry without any braking system at all – pushing deaths in Chad where people are drinking from puddles contaminated with animal feces as being the same danger as a healthy person in the US.

This is inaccurate and a scare tactic.

EVERY disease was decreasing WELL before their vaccine was developed, and NONE of those death rates were ever changed on the graph curve when the vaccine came along. They just kept going in the direction they had been going prior to the vaccine.

i think vaccines are totally over-rated and their science is actually not convincing at all.

Think about how we are told that vaccines are “effective” because of their “scientific testing”. What this REALLY means is that they looked for an antigen response. About 2% of your immune system response – and about 4-6% of people don’t even develop an antigen response. On the other hand, there are studies in which people have been observed as they fought the actual disease – and some of the people actively and successfully fighting that disease DID NOT HAVE AN ANTIGEN RESPONSE! What this means is that measuring antigen response as being the golden standard of vaccine effectiveness is grossly inaccurate and bad science.

Furthermore, an antigen response might be combined with a cell mediated response when one is given a vaccine. THIS IS NEVER ENOUGH TO CAUSE IMMUNITY, AND THERE IS ZERO IMMUNITY FROM VACCINATION. You MIGHT have some temporary protection – maybe. But immunity is PERMANENT – and NO vaccine comes close to doing this. On the other hand, we who have had the diseases occur naturally – in childhood – have permanent immunity you vaxxers can only dream about. i personally have had measles, chicken pox, and mumps at the least as a child and have total, permanent immunity from these things – unlike ANYONE with a vaccination modulated reaction.

Depending on who you listen to – your probiotics constitute 70% – 90% of your immune system and when you have a natural pathogen response it comes through the mucous membranes – not through intramuscular injection. When nature does that it’s not usually pretty. Spider bites, snake bite, wasp stings, bees – i’ve had a honey locust thorn go through my tennis shoe and one inch into my arch, where the tip (conveniently) broke off AND IT STARTED MAKING PUS WITHIN 5 MINUTES – so i’m not a fan of intramuscular injection.

Nature uses the mucous membranes to enter, then your probiotics in your mouth and your intestines get involved. Then you tend to have your organs of elimination and cleansing – liver/kidney kick in, your lymph system, macrophages, etc. NONE of this happens with vaccines.

Instead you get toxins and poisonous substances – with the bonus of a disease thrown in – shoved INTO YOUR MUSCLES where you can develop allergies (think peanut for starters) as the body attacks the foreign NOT CORRECTLY DIGESTED ITEMS.

Oh – and in the bad science is the fact that in vaxassination testing – the placebo is NOT an inert, non affective substance like saline solution or something innocuous. Usually the other ingredients in the vaccine are used, so if a patient reacts to the aluminum, or the Polysorbate 80, or the MSG, or the fetus DNA from aborted babies – it will have the same reaction in the so-called “placebo” as in the shots. This makes the vaccine look to not be much more dangerous than what YOU think is nothing. It’s a stacked poison profile to make the shots look good.

Look at the Flulaval insert – i don’t get flu shots – never have, and the last time i had to take time off work for sickness was 1977. The insert states that (while your MD assures you that it is safe for…) no studies have proven the vaccine to be safe for pregnant women, fetuses, nursing babies or mothers or infants. Further – it states that no studies have shown the flu shot to reduce your risk of developing the flu….

“EVERY disease was decreasing WELL before their vaccine was developed,….”

Really? The following is US Census data on rates of measles incidence in the USA during the 20th century. Do tell us where measles incidence was declining and never going back up again before 1960. Then tell us why measles rates plunged 90% in the USA between 1960 and 1970, provide PubMed indexed citations.

Also please do not mention mortality/deaths (do not confuse it with morbidity, which is what I am asking about), do not mention any other disease (trying to keep it simple), do not mention any other country (this is US Census data, and it only covers the United States of America, and neither England nor Wales are American states) and do not mention any other decade unless the incidence rate dropped more than 50% and neverwent up again:

(Anyone want to take a guess how many times I have asked the US Census measles rate question on this article in this thread? And how many actually answered with real evidence? The latter is easy, it is the limit of 1/x as x goes towards infinity.)

Incidentally, the NVICP’s numbers are a solid indication of just how safe vaccines are. They annually award damages about a thousand times less than what automobile accidents cause. I posted some statistics and sources.